§ Fam.5.7  XII (Fam. V, 7) TO CN. POMPEIUS MAGNUS ROME M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets Cn. Pompeius, son of Cneius, Imperator. If you and the army are well I shall be glad. From your official despatch I have, in common with everyone else, received the liveliest satisfaction; for you have given us that strong hope of peace, of which, in sole reliance on you, I was assuring everyone. But I must inform you that your old enemies — now posing as your friends — have received a stunning blow by this despatch, and, being disappointed in the high hopes they were entertaining, are thoroughly depressed. Though your private letter to me contained a somewhat slight expression of your affection, yet I can assure you it gave me pleasure: for there is nothing in which I habitually find greater satisfaction than in the consciousness of serving my friends; and if on any occasion I do not meet with an adequate return, I am not at all sorry to have the balance of kindness in my favour. Of this I feel no doubt — even if my extraordinary zeal in your behalf has failed to unite you to me — that the interests of the state will certainly effect a mutual attachment and coalition between us. To let you know, however, what I missed in your letter I will write with the candour which my own disposition and our common friendship demand. I did expect some congratulation in your letter on my achievements, for the sake at once of the ties between us and of the Republic. This I presume to have been omitted by you from a fear of hurting anyone's feelings. But let me tell you that what I did for the salvation of the country is approved by the judgment and testimony of the whole world. You are a much greater man than Africanus, but I am not much inferior to Laelius either; and when you come home you will recognize that I have acted with such prudence and spirit, that you will not be ashamed of being coupled with me in politics as well as in private friendship.

§ Fam.5.1  XIII (Fam. V, 1) Q. METELLUS CELER TO CICERO CISALPINE GAUL Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus, proconsul, greets M. Tullius Cicero. If you are well I am glad. I had thought, considering our mutual regard and the reconciliation effected between us, that I was not likely to be held up to ridicule in my absence, nor my brother attacked by you in his civil existence and property for the sake of a mere word. If his own high character was not a sufficient protection to him, yet either the position of our family, or my own loyal conduct to you and the Republic ought to have been sufficient to support him. As it is I see that he has been ruined and I abandoned by the last people in the world who ought to have done so. I am accordingly in sorrow and wearing mourning dress, while actually in command of a province and army and conducting a war. And seeing that your conduct in this affair has neither been reasonable nor in accordance with the milder methods of old times, you must not be surprised if you live to repent it. I did not expect to find you so fickle towards me and mine. For myself, meanwhile, neither family sorrow nor ill-treatment by any individual shall withdraw me from the service of the state.

§ Fam.5.2  XIV (Fam. V, 2) TO Q. METELLUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL) ROME M. Tullius, son of Marcus, to Q. Metellus Celer, son of Quintus, proconsul wishes health. If you and the army are well I shall be glad. You say in your letter that you "thought, considering our mutual regard and the reconciliation effected between us, that you were not likely to be held up to ridicule by me." To what you refer I do not clearly understand, but I suspect that you have been informed that, while arguing in the senate that there were many who were annoyed at my having saved the state, I said that your relations, whose wishes you had been unable to withstand, had induced you to pass over in silence what you had made up your mind you ought to say in the senate in my praise. But while saying so I also added this — that the duty of supporting the Republic had been so divided between us that I was defending the city from internal treachery and the crime of its own citizens, you Italy from armed enemies and covert conspiracy yet that this association in a task so noble and so glorious had been imperilled by your relations, who, while you had been complimented by me in the fullest and most laudatory terms, had been afraid of any display of mutual regard on your part being put to my credit. As this sentence betrayed how much I had looked forward to your speech, and how mistaken I had been in that expectation, my speech caused some amusement, and was received with a moderate amount of laughter; but the laugh was not against you, it was rather at my mistake, and at the open and naive confession of my eagerness to be commended by you. Surely it cannot but be a compliment to you that in the hour of my greatest triumph and glory I yet wished for some testimony of approval from your lips. As to your expression, "considering our mutual regard " — I don't know your idea of what is "mutual" in friendship; mine is an equal interchange of good feeling. Now if I were to mention that I passed over a province for your sake, you might think me somewhat insincere; for, in point of fact, it suited my convenience, and I feel more and more every day of my life the advantage and pleasure which I have received from that decision. But this I do say — the moment I had announced in public meeting my refusal of a province, I began at once thinking how I might hand it on to you. I say nothing as to the circumstances of your allotment: I only wish you to suspect that nothing was done in that matter by my colleague without my cognizance. Recall the other circumstances: how promptly I summoned the senate on that day after the lots had been drawn, at what a length I spoke about you. You yourself said at the time that my speech was not merely complimentary to you, but absolutely a reflection on your colleagues. Further, the decree of the senate passed on that day has such a preamble that, so long as it is extant, there can never be any doubt of my services to you. Subsequently, when you had gone out of town; I would have you recall my motions in the senate, my speeches in public meetings, my letters to yourself. And having reviewed all these together, I would like you to judge yourself whether you think that your approach to Rome the last time you came quite showed an adequate return for all these services. Again, as to your expression, "the reconciliation effected between us " — I do not understand why you speak of "reconciliation" in the case of a friendship that had never been broken. As to what you say, that your brother Metellus ought not "to have been attacked by me for a mere word," in the first place I would like to assure you that your feeling and fraternal partiality — so full of human kindness and natural affection — meet with my warmest approbation; in the next place I must claim your indulgence if I have in any matter opposed your brother in the interests of the Republic, for my devotion to the Republic is paramount. If however, it is my personal safety that I have defended against a most ruthless assault of his, I think you should be content that I make no complaint even to you of your brother's injurious conduct. Now, when I had become aware that he was deliberately making every preparation to use his tribunician office to my ruin, I appealed to your wife Claudia and your sister Mucia (of whose kindness to me for the sake of my friendship with Pompey I had satisfied myself by many instances) to deter him from that injurious conduct. And yet, as I am sure you have heard, on the last day of December he inflicted upon me — a consul and the preserver of my country — an indignity such as was never inflicted upon the most disloyal citizen in the humblest office: that is to say, he deprived me when laying down my office of the privilege of addressing the people — an indignity, however, which after all redounded to my honour. For, upon his forbidding me to do anything but take the oath, I pronounced an oath at once the most absolutely true and the most glorious in a loud voice — an oath which the people swore also in a loud voice to be absolutely true. Though I had actually suffered this signal indignity, I yet on that same day sent common friends to Metellus to persuade him to alter his resolution; to whom he answered that he was no longer free to do so. And, in fact, a short time previously he had said in a public meeting that a man who had punished others without trial ought not himself to be allowed the privilege of speech. What a model of consistency! What an admirable citizen! So he deemed the man who had saved the senate from massacre, the city from the incendiary, Italy from war, deserving of the same penalty as that inflicted by the senate with the unanimous approval of all loyal citizens, upon those who had intended to set fire to the city, butcher magistrates and senate, and stir up a formidable war! Accordingly, I did withstand your brother Metellus to his face: for on the 1st of January, in the senate, I maintained a debate with him on the state of the Republic, such as taught him that he had to contend with a man of courage and firmness. On the 3rd of January, on again opening the debate, he kept harping on me and threatening me at every third word of his speech; nor could any intention be more deliberate than his was to overthrow me by any means in his power, not by calm and judicial argument, but by violence and mere browbeating. If I had not shown some boldness and spirit in opposing his intemperate attack, would not everyone have concluded that the courage I had displayed in my consulship was the result of accident rather than design? If you did not know that Metellus was contemplating these measures in regard to me you must consider that you have been kept in the dark by your brother on matters of the utmost importance: if, on the other hand, he did entrust any part of his designs to you, then surely I ought to be regarded by you as a man of placable and reasonable temper for not addressing a word of reproach to you even on such occurrences as these Understanding then that it was by no "mere word" (as you express it) of Metellus that I was roused, but by his deliberate policy and extraordinary animosity towards me next observe my forbearance — if "forbearance" is the name to be given to irresolution and laxity under a most galling indignity. I never once delivered a vote in a speech against your brother every time a motion was before the house I assented without rising to those whose proposal appeared to me to be the mildest. I will also add that, though in the circumstances there was no obligation upon me to do so, yet so far from raising objections I actually did my best to secure that my enemy, because he was your brother, should be relieved from penalties by a decree of the senate. Wherefore I have not "attacked" your brother, but only defended myself from your brother's attack; nor have I been "fickle" (to quote your word), but, on the contrary, so constant, that I remained faithful to my friendship to you, though left without any sign of kindness from you. For instance, at this moment, though your letter amounts almost to a threat, I am writing back an answer such as you see. I not only pardon your vexation, I even applaud it in the highest degree; for my own heart tells me how strong is the influence of fraternal affection. I ask you in your turn to put a liberal construction upon my vexation, and to conclude that when attacked by your relatives with bitterness, with brutality, and without cause, I not only ought not to retract anything, but, in a case of that kind, should even be able to rely upon the aid of yourself and your army. I have always wished to have you as a friend: I have taken pains to make you understand that I am a warm friend to you. I abide by that sentiment, and shall abide by it as long as you will let me; and I shall more readily cease to be angry with your brother for love of you, than I shall from anger with him abate in the smallest degree my kindness for you.

§ Fam.5.6  XV (Fam. V, 6) TO P. SESTIUS (IN MACEDONIA) ROME, DECEMBER Decius the copyist has been to see me, and begged me to try and secure that no successor should be appointed to you this turn. Though I regarded him as a man of good character and attached to you, yet, remembering the tenor of your previous letter to me, I could not feel certain that the wishes of a cautious man of the world like yourself had undergone so complete a change. But after your wife Cornelia had called on Terentia, and I had had a conversation with Q. Cornelius, I took care to be present at every meeting of the senate, and found that the greatest trouble was to make Fufius the tribune, and the others to whom you had written, believe me rather than your own letters. The whole business has, after all, been postponed till January, but there is no difficulty about it. Roused by your congratulations — for in a letter sometime ago you wished me good luck on the completion of my purchase of a house from Crassus — I have bought that very house for 3,500 sestertia, a good while subsequent to your congratulation. Accordingly, you may now look upon me as being so deeply in debt as to be eager to join a conspiracy if anyone would admit me! But, partly from personal dislike they shut their doors in my face and openly denounce me as the punisher of conspiracy, partly are incredulous and afraid that I am setting a trap for them! Nor do they suppose that a man can be short of money who has relieved the money-lenders from a state of siege. In point of fact, money is plentiful at six per cent., and the success of my measures has caused me to be regarded as a good security. Your own house, and all the details of its construction, I have examined and strongly approve. As for Antonius, though everyone notices his want of attention to my interests, I have nevertheless defended him in the senate with the utmost earnestness and persistence, and have made a strong impression on the senate by my language as well as by my personal prestige. Pray write to me more frequently.

§ Fam.5.5  XVII (Fam. V, 5) TO C. ANTONIUS (IN MACEDONIA) ROME, JANUARY: M. Cicero wishes health to Gaius Antonius, son of Marcus, Imperator. Though I had resolved to write you nothing but formal letters of introduction (not because I felt that they had much weight with you, but to avoid giving those who asked me for them an idea that there had been any diminution in our friendship), yet since Titus Pomponius is starting for your province, who knows better than anyone else all that I feel and have done for you, who desires your friendship and is most devotedly attached to me, I thought I must write something, especially as I had no other way of satisfying Pomponius himself. Were I to ask from you services of the greatest moment, it ought not to seem surprising to anyone: for you have not wanted from me any that concerned your interests, honour, or position. That no return has been made by you for these you are the best witness: that something even of a contrary nature has proceeded from you I have been told by many. I say "told," for I do not venture to say "discovered," lest I should chance to use the word which people tell me is often falsely attributed to me by you. But the story which has reached my ears I would prefer your learning from Pomponius (who was equally hurt by it) rather than from my letter. How singularly loyal my feelings have been to you the senate and Roman people are both witnesses. How far you have been grateful to me you may yourself estimate: how much you owe me the rest of the world estimates. I was induced to do what I did for you at first by affection, and afterwards by consistency. Your future, believe me, stands in need of much greater zeal on my part, greater firmness and greater labour. These labours, unless it shall appear that I am throwing away and wasting my pains, I shall support with all the strength I have; but if I see that they are not appreciated, I shall not allow you — the very person benefited — to think me a fool for my pains. What the meaning of all this is you will be able to learn from Pomponius. In commending Pomponius to you, although I am sure you will do anything in your power for his own sake, yet I do beg that if you have any affection for me left, you will display it all in Pomponius's business. You can do me no greater favour than that.

§ 60.29.2  I think, indeed, it is a hard task to find such men, especially if we notice that the same persons care nothing for almost any man out of office, yet always with one consent show affection for the praetors. But of this class, if by chance you have discovered any one to be fonder of you — for it may so happen — than of your office, such a man indeed gladly admit upon your list of friends: but if you fail to perceive that, there is no Class of people you must be more on your guard against admitting to intimacy, just because they are acquainted with all the ways of making money, do everything for the sake of it, and have no consideration for the reputation of a man with whom they are not destined to pass their lives. And even among the Greeks themselves you must be on your guard against admitting close intimacies, except in the case of the very few, if such are to be found, who are worthy of ancient Greece. As things now stand, indeed, too many of them are untrustworthy, false, and schooled by long servitude in the arts of extravagant adulation. My advice is that these men should all be entertained with courtesy, but that close ties of hospitality or friendship should only be formed with the best of them: excessive intimacies with them are not very trustworthy — for they do not venture to oppose our wishes — and they are not only jealous of our countrymen, but of their own as well. VI. And now, considering the caution and care that I would show in matters of this kind — in which I fear I may be somewhat over-severe — what do you suppose my sentiments are in regard to slaves? Upon these we ought to keep a hold in all places, but especially in the provinces. On this head many rules may be laid down, but this is at once the shortest and most easily maintained — that they should behave during your progresses in Asia as though you were travelling on the Appian way, and not suppose that it makes any difference whether they have arrived at Tralles or Formiae. But if, again, any one of your slaves is conspicuously trustworthy, employ him in your domestic and private affairs; but in affairs pertaining to your office as governor, or in any department of the state, do not let him lay a finger. For many things which may, with perfect propriety, be in-trusted to slaves, must yet not be so entrusted, for the sake of avoiding talk and hostile remark. But my discourse, I know not how, has slipped into the didactic vein, though that is not what I proposed to myself originally. For what right have I to be laying down rules for one who, I am fully aware, in this subject especially, is not my inferior in wisdom, while in experience he is even my superior? Yet, after all, if your actions had the additional weight of my approval, I thought that they would seem more satisfactory to yourself. Wherefore, let these be the foundations on which your public character rests: first and foremost your own honesty and self-control, then the scrupulous conduct of all your staff, the exceedingly cautious and careful selection in regard to intimacies with provincials and Greeks, the strict and unbending government of your slaves. These are creditable even in the conduct of our private and everyday business: in such an important government, where morals are so debased and the province has such a corrupting influence, they must needs seem divine. Such principles and conduct on your part are sufficient to justify the strictness which you have displayed in some acts of administration, owing to which I have encountered certain personal disputes with great satisfaction, unless, indeed, you suppose me to be annoyed by the complaints of a fellow like Paconius — who is not even a Greek, but in reality a Mysian or Phrygian — or by the words of Tuscenius, a madman and a knave, from whose abominable jaws you snatched the fruits of a most infamous piece of extortion with the most complete justice. [7] These and similar instances of your strict administration in your province we shall find difficulty in justifying, unless they are accompanied by the most perfect integrity: wherefore let there be the greatest strictness in your administration of justice, provided only that it is never varied from favour, but is kept up with impartiality. But it is of little avail that justice is administered by yourself with impartiality and care, unless the same is done by those to whom you have entrusted any portion of this duty. And, indeed, in my view there is no very great variety of business in the government of Asia: the entire province mainly depends on the administration of justice. In it we have the whole theory of government, especially of provincial government, clearly displayed: all that a governor has to do is to show consistency and firmness enough, not only td resist favouritism, but even the suspicion of it. To this also must be added courtesy in listening to pleaders, consideration in pronouncing a decision, and painstaking efforts to convince suitors of its justice, and to answer their arguments. It is by such habits that C. Octavius has recently made himself very popular; in whose court, for the first time, the lictor did not interfere, and the marshal kept silence, while every suitor spoke as often and as long as he chose. In which conduct he would perhaps have been thought over-lax, had it not been that this laxity enabled him to maintain the following in stance of severity. The partisans of Sulla were forced to restore what they had taken by violence and terrorism. Those who had made inequitable decrees; while in office, were now as private citizens forced to submit to the principles they had established. This strictness on his part would have been thought harsh, had it not been rendered palatable by many sweetening influences of courtesy. But if this gentleness was sufficient to make him popular at Rome, where there is such haughtiness of spirit, such unrestrained liberty, such unlimited licence of individuals, and, in fine, so many magistrates, so many means of obtaining protection, such vast power in the hands of the popular assembly, and such influence exercised by the senate, how welcome must a praetor's courtesy be in Asia, in which there is such a numerous body of citizens and allies, so many cities, so many communities, all hanging on one man's nod, and in which there are no means of protection, no one to whom to make a complaint, no senate, no popular assembly! Wherefore it requires an exalted character, a man who is not only equitable from natural impulse, but who has also been trained by study and the refinements of a liberal education, so to conduct himself while in the possession of such immense power, that those over whom he rules should not feel the want of any other power. [8] Take the case of the famous Cyrus, portrayed by Xenophon, not as an historical character, but as a model of righteous government, the serious dignity of whose character is represented by that philosopher as combined with a peculiar courtesy. And, indeed, it is not without reason that our hero Africanus used perpetually to have those books in his hands, for there is no duty pertaining to a careful and equitable governor which is not to be found in them. Well, if he cultivated those qualities, though never destined to be in a private station, how carefully ought those to maintain them to whom power is given with the understanding that it must be surrendered, and given by laws under whose authority they must once more come? In my opinion all who govern others are bound to regard as the object of all their actions the greatest happiness of the governed. That this is your highest object, and has been so since you first landed in Asia, has been published abroad by Consistent rumour and the conversation of all. It is, let me add, not only the duty of one who governs allies and citizens, but even of one who governs slaves and dumb animals, to serve the interests and advantage of those under him. In this point I notice that everyone agrees that you take the greatest pains: no new debt is being contracted by the states, while many have been relieved by you from a heavy and long-standing one. Several cities that had become dilapidated and almost deserted — of which one was the most famous state in Ionia, the other in Caria, Samus and Halicarnassus — have been given a new life by you: there is no party fighting, no civil strife in the towns: you take care that the government of the states is administered by the best class of citizens: brigandage is abolished in Mysia; murder suppressed in many districts; peace is established throughout the province; and not only the robberies usual on highways and in country places, but those more numerous and more serious ones in towns and temples, have been completely stopped: the fame, fortunes, and repose of the rich have been relieved of that most oppressive instrument of praetorial rapacity-vexatious prosecution; the expenses and tribute of the states are made to fall with equal weight on all who live in the territories of those states: access to you is as easy as possible: your ears are open to the complaints of all: no man's want of means or want of friends excludes him, I don't say from access to you in public and on the tribunal, but even from your house and chamber: in a word, throughout your government there is no harshness or cruelty-everywhere clemency, mildness, and kindness reign supreme. [9] What an immense benefit, again, have you done in having liberated Asia from the tribute exacted by the aediles, a measure which cost me some violent controversies! For if one of our nobles complains openly that by your edict, "No moneys shall be voted for the games," you have robbed him of 200 sestertia, what a vast sum of money would have been paid, had a grant been made to the Credit of every magistrate who held games, as had become the regular custom! However, I stopped these Complaints by taking up this position — what they think of it in Asia I don't know, in Rome it meets with no little approval and praise — I refused to accept a sum of money which the states had decreed for a temple and monument in our honour, though they had done so with the greatest enthusiasm in view both of my services and of your most valuable benefactions; and though the law contained a special and distinct exception in these words, "that it was lawful to receive for temple or monument"; and though again the money was not going to be thrown away, but would be employed on decorating a temple, and would thus appear to have been given to the Roman people and gift in its favour, I determined that I must not accept it, for the immortal Gods rather than to myself — yet, in spite of its having desert, law, and the wishes of those who offered the this reason among others, namely, to prevent those, to whom such an honour was neither due nor legal, from being jealous. Wherefore adhere with all your heart and soul to the policy which you have hitherto adopted — that of being devoted to those whom the senate and people of Rome have committed and entrusted to your honour and authority, of doing your best to protect them, and of desiring their greatest happiness. Even if the lot had made you governor of Africans, or Spaniards, or Gauls — uncivilized and barbarous nations — it would still have been your duty as a man of feeling to consult for their interests and advantage, and to have contributed to their safety. But when we rule over a race of men in which civilization not only exists, but from which it is believed to have spread to others, we are bound to repay them, above all things, what we received from them. For I shall not be ashamed to go so far — especially as my life and achievements have been such as to exclude any suspicion of sloth or frivolity — as to confess that, whatever I have accomplished, I have accomplished by means of those studies and principles which have been transmitted to us in Greek literature and schools of thought. Wherefore, over and above the general good faith which is due to all men, I think we are in a special sense under an obligation to that nation, to put in practice what it has taught us among the very men by whose maxims we have been brought out of barbarism. [10] And indeed Plato, the fountain-head of genius and learning, thought that states would only be happy when scholars and philosophers began being their rulers, or when those who were their rulers had devoted all their attention to learning and philosophy. It was plainly this union of power and philosophy that in his opinion might prove the salvation of states. And this perhaps has at length fallen to the fortune of the whole empire: certainly it has in the present instance to your province, to have a man in supreme power in it, who has from boyhood spent the chief part of his zeal and time in imbibing the principles of philosophy, virtue, and humanity. Wherefore be careful that this third year, which has been added to your labour, may be thought a prolongation of prosperity to Asia. And since Asia was more fortunate in retaining you than I was in my endeavour to bring you back, see that my regret is softened by the exultation of the province. For if you have displayed the very greatest activity in earning honours such as, I think, have never been paid to anyone else, much greater ought your activity to be in preserving these honours. What I for my part think of honours of that kind I have told you in previous letters. I have always regarded them, if given indiscriminately, as of little value, if paid from interested motives, as worthless: if, however, as in this case, they are tributes to solid services on your part, I hold you bound to take much pains in preserving them. Since, then, you are exercising supreme power and official authority in cities, in which you have before your eyes the consecration and apotheosis of your virtues, in all decisions, decrees, and official acts consider what you owe to those warm opinions entertained of you, to those verdicts on your character, to those honours which have been rendered you. And what you owe will be to consult for the interests of all, to remedy men's misfortunes, to provide for their safety, to resolve that you will be both called and believed to be the "father of Asia." [11] However, to such a resolution and deliberate policy on your part the great obstacle are the publicani: for, if we oppose them, we shall alienate from ourselves and from the Republic an order which has done us most excellent service, and which has been brought into sympathy with the Republic by our means; if, on the other hand, we comply with them in every case, we shall allow the complete ruin of those whose interests, to say nothing of their preservation, we are bound to consult. This is the one difficulty, if we look the thing fairly in the face, in your whole government. For disinterested conduct on one's own part, the suppression of all inordinate desires, the keeping a check upon one's staff, courtesy in hearing causes, in listening to and admitting suitor — all this is rather a question of credit than of difficulty: for it does not depend on any special exertion, but rather on a mental resolve and inclination. But how much bitterness of feeling is caused to allies by that question of the publicani we have had reason to know in the case of citizens who, when recently urging the removal of the port-dues in Italy, did not complain so much of the dues themselves, as of certain extortionate conduct on the part of the collectors. Wherefore, after hearing the grievances of citizens in Italy, I can comprehend what happens to allies in distant lands. To conduct oneself in this matter in such a way as to satisfy the publicani especially when contracts have been undertaken at a loss, and yet to preserve the allies from ruin, seems to demand a virtue with something divine in it, I mean a virtue like yours. To begin with, that they are subject to tax at all, which is their greatest grievance, ought not to be thought so by the Greeks, because they were so subject by their own laws without the Roman government. Again, they cannot despise the word publicanus, for they have been unable to pay the assessment according to Sulla's poll-tax without the aid of the publican. But that Greek publicani are not more considerate in exacting the payment of taxes than our own may be gathered from the fact that the Caunii, and all the islands assigned to the Rhodians by Sulla, recently appealed to the protection of the senate, and petitioned to be allowed to pay their tax to us rather than to the Rhodians. Wherefore neither ought those to revolt at the name of a publicanus who have always been subject to tax, nor those to despise it who have been unable to make up the tribute by themselves, nor those to refuse his services who have asked for them. At the same time let Asia reflect on this, that if she were not under our government, there is no calamity of foreign war or internal strife from which she would be free. And since that government cannot possibly be maintained without taxes, she should be content to purchase perpetual peace and tranquillity at the price of a certain proportion of her products. [12] But if they will fairly reconcile themselves to the existence and name of publican, all the rest may be made to appear to them in a less offensive light by your skill and prudence.

§ 60.29.3  They may, in making their bargains with the publicani, not have regard so much to the exact conditions laid down by the censors as to the convenience of settling the business and freeing themselves from farther trouble. You also may do, what you have done splendidly and are still doing, namely, dwell on the high position of the publicani, and on your obligations to that order, in such a way as — putting out of the question all considerations of your imperium and the power of your official authority and dignity — to reconcile the Greeks with the publicani; and to beg of those, whom you have served eminently well, and who owe you everything, to suffer you by their compliance to maintain and preserve the bonds which unite us with thepublicani. But why do I address these exhortations to you, who are not only capable of carrying them out of your own accord without anyone's instruction, but have already to a great extent thoroughly done so? For the most respectable and important companies do not cease offering me thanks daily, and this is all the more gratifying to me because the Greeks do the same. Now it is an achievement of great difficulty to unite in feeling things which are opposite in interests, aims, and, I had almost said, in their very nature. But I have not written all this to instruct you — for your wisdom requires no man's instruction — but it has been a pleasure to me while writing to set down your virtues, though I have run to greater length in this letter than I could have wished, or than I thought I should. [13] There is one thing on which I shall not cease from giving you advice, nor will I, as far as in me lies, allow your praise to be spoken of with a reservation. For all who come from your province do make one reservation in the extremely high praise which they bestow on your virtue, integrity, and kindness — it is that of sharpness of temper. That is a fault which, even in our private and everyday life, seems to indicate want of solidity and strength of mind; but nothing, surely, can be more improper than to combine harshness of temper with the exercise of supreme power. Wherefore I will not undertake to lay before you now what the greatest philosophers say about anger, for I should not wish to be tedious, and you can easily ascertain it yourself from the writings of many of them: but I don't think I ought to pass over what is the essence of a letter, namely, that the recipient should be informed of what he does not know. Well, what nearly everybody reports to me is this: they usually say that, as long as you are not out of temper, nothing can be pleasanter than you are, but that when some instance of dishonesty or wrong-headedness has stirred you, your temper rises to such a height that no one Can discover any trace of your usual kindness. Wherefore, since no mere desire for glory, but circumstances and fortune have brought us upon a path of life which makes it inevitable that men will always talk about us, let us be on our guard, to the utmost of our means and ability, that no glaring fault may be alleged to have existed in us. And I am not now urging, what is perhaps difficult in human nature generally, and at our time of life especially, that you should change your disposition and suddenly pluck out a deeply-rooted habit, but I give you this hint: if you cannot completely avoid this failing, because your mind is surprised by anger before cool calculation has been able to prevent it, deliberately prepare yourself beforehand, and daily reflect on the duty of resisting anger, and that, when it moves your heart most violently, it is just the time for being most careful to restrain your tongue. And that sometimes seems to me to be a. greater virtue than not being angry at all. For the latter is not always a mark of superiority to weakness, it is sometimes the result of dullness; but to govern temper and speech, however angry you may be, or even to hold your tongue and keep your indignant feelings and resentment under control, although it may not be a proof of perfect wisdom, yet requires no ordinary force of character. And, indeed, in this respect they tell me that you are now much more gentle and less irritable. No violent outbursts of indignation on your part, no abusive words, no insulting language are reported to me: which, while quite alien to culture and refinement, are specially unsuited to high power and place. For if your anger is implacable, it amounts to extreme harshness; if easily appeased, to extreme weakness. The latter, however, as a choice of evils, is, after all, preferable to harshness. [14] But since your first year gave rise to most talk in regard to this particular complaint — I believe because the wrong-doing, the covetousness, and the arrogance of men came upon you as a surprise, and seemed to you unbearable-while your second year was much milder, because habit and refection, and, as I think, my letters also, rendered you more tolerant and gentle, the third ought to be so completely reformed, as not to give even the smallest ground for anyone to find fault. And here I go on to urge upon you, not by way of exhortation or admonition, but by brotherly entreaties, that you would set your whole heart, care, and thought on the gaining of praise from everybody and from every quarter. If, indeed, our achievements were only the subject of a moderate amount of talk and commendation, nothing eminent, nothing beyond the practice of others, would have been demanded of you. As it is, however, owing to the brilliancy and magnitude of the affairs in which we have been engaged, if we do not obtain the very highest reputation from your province, it seems scarcely possible for us to avoid the most violent abuse. Our position is such that all loyalists support us, but demand also and expect from us every kind of activity and virtue, while all the disloyal, seeing that we have entered upon a lasting war with them, appear contented with the very smallest excuse for attacking us. Wherefore, since fortune has allotted to you such a theatre as Asia, completely packed with an audience, of immense size, of the most refined judgment, and, moreover, naturally so capable of conveying sound, that its expressions of opinion and its remarks reach Rome, put out all your power, I beseech you, exert all your energies to appear not only to have been worthy of the part we played here, but to have surpassed everything done there by your high qualities. [15] And since chance has assigned to me among the magistracies the Conduct of public business in the city, to you that in a province, if my share is inferior to no one's, take care that yours surpasses others. At the same time think of this: we are not now working for a future and prospective glory, but are fighting in defence of what has been already gained; which indeed it was not so much an object to gain as it is now our duty to defend. And if anything in me could be apart from you, I should desire nothing more than the position which I have already gained. The actual fact, however, is that unless all your acts and deeds in your province correspond to my achievements, I shall think that I have gained nothing by those great labours and dangers, in all of which you have shared. But if it was you who, above all others, assisted me to gain a most splendid reputation, you will certainly also labour more than others to enable me to retain it. You must not be guided by the opinions and judgments of the present generation only, but of those to come also: and yet the latter will be a more candid judgment, for it will not be influenced by detraction and malice. Finally, you should think of this — that you are not seeking glory for yourself alone (and even if that were the case, you still ought not to be careless of it, especially as you had determined to consecrate the memory of your name by the most splendid monuments), but you have to share it with me, and to hand it down to our children. In regard to which you must be on your guard lest by any excess of carelessness you should seem not only to have neglected your own interests, but to have begrudged those of your family also. [16] And these observations are not made with the idea of any speech of mine appearing to have roused you from your sleep, but to have rather "added speed to the runner. For you will continue to compel all in the future, as you have compelled them in the past, to praise your equity, self-control, strictness, and honesty. But from my extreme affection I am possessed with a certain insatiable greed for glory for you. However, I am convinced that, as Asiashould now be as well-known to you as each man's own house is to himself, and since to your supreme good sense such great experience has now been added, there is nothing that affects reputation which you do not know as well as possible yourself, and which does not daily occur to your mind without anybody's exhortation. But I, who when I read your writing seem to hear your voice, and when I write to you seem to be talking to you, am therefore always best pleased with your longest letter, and in writing am often somewhat prolix myself. My last prayer and advice to you is that, as good poets and painstaking actors always do, so you should be most attentive in the last scenes and conclusion of your function and business, so that this third year of your government, like a third act in a play, may appear to have been the most elaborated and most highly finished. You will do that with more ease if you will think that I, whom you always wished to please more than all the world besides, am always at your side, and am taking part in everything you say and do. It remains only to beg you to take the greatest care of your health, if you wish me and all your friends to be well also. Farewell.

§ Fam.13.42  LIII (Fam. XIII, 42) TO L. CULLEOLUS (IN ILLYRICUM) ROME My friend L. Lucceius, the most delightful fellow in the world, has expressed in my presence amazingly warm thanks to you, saying that you have given most complete and liberal promises to his agents. Since your words have roused such gratitude in him, you may imagine how grateful he will be for the thing itself, when, as I hope, you will have performed your promise. In any case the people of Bullis have shown that they intend to do Lucceius right according to the award of Pompey. But we have very great need of the additional support of your wishes, influence, and praetorian authority. That you should give us these I beg you again and again. And this will be particularly gratifying to me, because Lucceius's agents know, and Lucceius himself gathered from your letter to him, that no one's influence has greater weight with you than mine. I ask you once more, and reiterate my request, that he may find that to be the case by practical experience.

§ Fam.13.41  LIV (Fam. XIII, 41) TO L. CULLEOLUS (IN ILLYRICUM) ROME IN what you have done for the sake of L. Lucceius, I wish you to be fully aware that you have obliged a man who will be exceedingly grateful; and that, while this is very much the case with Lucceius himself, so also Pompey as often as he sees me — and he sees me very often-thanks you in no common terms. I add also, what I know will be exceedingly gratifying to you, that I am myself immensely delighted with your kindness to Lucceius. For the rest, though I have no doubt that as you acted before for my sake, so now, for the sake of your own consistency, you will abide by your liberal intentions, yet I reiterate my request to you with all earnestness, that what you first gave us reason to hope, and then actually carried out, you would be so good as to see extended and brought to a final completion by your means. I assure you, and I pledge my credit to it, that such a course will be exceedingly gratifying to both Lucceius and Pompey, and that you will be making a most excellent investment with them. About politics, and about the business going on here, and what we are all thinking about, I wrote to you in full detail a few days ago, and delivered the letter to your servants. Farewell.

§ Fam.14.4  LXI (Fam. XIV, 4) TO TERENTIA, TULLIOLA, AND YOUNG CICERO (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, 29 APRIL: Yes, I do write to you less often than I might, because, though I am always wretched, yet when I write to you or read a letter from you, I am in such floods of tears that I cannot endure it. Oh, that I had clung less to life! I should at least never have known real sorrow, or not much of it, in my life. Yet if fortune has reserved for me any hope of recovering at any time any position again, I was not utterly wrong to do so: if these miseries are to be permanent, I only wish, my dear, to see you as soon as possible and to die in your arms, since neither gods, whom you have worshipped with such pure devotion, nor men, whom I have ever served, have made us any return. I have been thirteen days at Brundisium in the house of M. Laenius Flaccus, a very excellent man, who has despised the risk to his fortunes and civil existence in comparison to keeping me safe, nor has been induced by the penalty of a most iniquitous law to refuse me the rights and good offices of hospitality and friendship. May I some time have the opportunity of repaying him! Feel gratitude I always shall. I set out from Brundisium on the 29th of April, and intend going through Macedonia to Cyzicus. What a fall! What a disaster! What can I say? Should I ask you to come — a woman of weak health and broken spirit? Should I refrain from asking you? Am I to be without you, then? I think the best course is this: if there is any hope of my restoration, stay to promote it and push the thing on: but if, as I fear, it proves hopeless, pray come to me by any means in your power. Be sure of this, that if I have you I shall not think myself wholly lost. But what is to become of my darling Tullia? You must see to that now: I can think of nothing. But certainly, however things turn out, we must do everything to promote that poor little girl's married happiness and reputation. Again, what is my boy Cicero to do? Let him, at any rate, be ever in my bosom and in my arms. I can't write more. A fit of weeping hinders me. I don't know how you have got on; whether you are left in possession of anything, or have been, as I fear, entirely plundered. Piso, as you say, I hope will always be our friend. As to the manumission of the slaves you need not be uneasy. To begin with, the promise made to yours was that you would treat them according as each severally deserved. So far Orpheus has behaved well, besides him no one very markedly so. With the rest of the slaves the arrangement is that, if my property is forfeited, they should become my freedmen, supposing them to be able to maintain at law that status. But if my property remained in my ownership, they were to continue slaves, with the exception of a very few. But these are trifles. To return to your advice, that I should keep up my courage and not give up hope of recovering my position, I only wish that there were any good grounds for entertaining such a hope. As it is, when, alas! shall I get a letter from you? Who will bring it me? I would have waited for it at Brundisium, but the sailors would not allow it, being unwilling to lose a favourable wind. For the rest, put as dignified a face on the matter as you can, my dear Terentia. Our life is over: we have had our day: it is not any fault of ours that has ruined us, but our virtue. I have made no false step, except in not losing my life when I lost my honours. But since our children preferred my living, let us bear every-thing else, however intolerable. And yet I, who encourage you, cannot encourage myself. I have sent that faithful fellow Clodius Philhetaerus home, because he was hampered with weakness of the eyes. Sallustius seems likely to outdo everybody in his attentions. Pescennius is exceedingly kind to me; and I have hopes that he will always be attentive to you. Sica had said that he would accompany me; but he has left Brundisium. Take the greatest possible care of your health, and believe me that I am more affected by your distress than my own. My dear Terentia, most faithful and best of wives, and my darling little daughter, and that last hope of my race, Cicero, good-bye! 29 April, from Brundisium.

§ Fam.14.2  LXXVIII (Fam. XIV, 2) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) THESSALONICA, 5 OCTOBER: GREETINGS to Terentia, and Tulliola, and Cicero. Don't suppose that I write longer letters to anyone else, unless some one has written at unusual length to me, whom I think myself bound to answer. For I have nothing to write about, and there is nothing at such a time as this that I find it more difficult to do. Moreover, to you and my dear Tulliola I cannot write without many tears. For I see you reduced to the greatest misery — the very people whom I desired to be ever enjoying the most complete happiness, a happiness which it was my bounden duty to secure, and which I should have secured if I had not been such a coward. Our dear Piso I love exceedingly for his noble conduct. I have to the best of my ability encouraged him by letter to proceed, and thanked him, as I was bound to do. I gather that you entertain hopes in the new tribunes. We shall have reason to depend on that, if we may depend on Pompey's goodwill, but yet I am nervous about Crassus. I gather that you have behaved in every respect with the greatest courage and most loyal affection, nor am I surprised at it; but I grieve that the position should be such that my miseries are relieved by such heavy ones on your part. For a kind friend of ours, Publius Valerius, has told me in a letter which I could not read without violent weeping, how you had been dragged from the temple of Vesta to the Valerian bank. To think of it, my dear, my love! You from whom everybody used to look for help! That you, my Terentia, should now be thus harassed, thus prostrate in tears and humiliating distress! And that this should be brought about by my fault, who have preserved the rest of the citizens only to perish myself! As to what you say about our town house, or rather its site, I shall not consider myself fully restored, until it has also been restored for me. However, these things are not yet within our grasp. I am only sorry that you, impoverished and plundered as you are, should be called upon to bear any part of the present expenses. Of course, if the business is successfully accomplished we shall get everything back: but if the same evil fortune keeps us down, will you be so foolish as to throw away even the poor remains of your fortune? I beseech you, my life, as far as expense goes, allow others to bear it, who are well able if they are only willing to do so; and do not, as you love me, try your delicate constitution. For I have you day and night before my eyes: I see you eagerly undertaking labours of every kind: I fear you cannot endure them. Yet I see that everything depends on you! Wherefore, to enable us to attain what you hope and are striving for, attend carefully to your health. J don't know to whom to write except to those who write to me, or to those about whom you say something in your letters. I will not go farther off, since that is your wish, but pray send me a letter as often as possible, especially if there is anything on which we may safely build our hope. Good-bye, my loves, good-bye! Thessalonica, 5 October.

§ Fam.14.1  LXXXI (Fam. XIV, 1) TO TERENTIA PARTLY WRITTEN AT THESSALONICA, PARTLY AT DYRRACHIUM, 28 NOVEMBER: Greetings to his Terentia, Tulliola, and Cicero. I learn, both from the letters of many and the conversation of all whom I meet, that you are showing a virtue and courage surpassing belief; and that you give no sign of fatigue in mind or body from your labours. Ah me! To think that a woman of your virtue, fidelity, uprightness, and kindness should have fallen into such troubles on my account! And that my little Tullia should reap such a harvest of sorrow from the father, from whom she used to receive such abundant joys! For why mention my boy Cicero, who from the first moment of conscious feeling has been made aware of the bitterest sorrows and miseries? And if, as you say, I had thought these things the work of destiny, I could have borne them somewhat more easily, but they were really all brought about by my own fault, in thinking myself beloved by those who were really jealous of me, and in not joining those who really wanted me. But if I had followed my own judgment, and had not allowed the observations of friends, who were either foolish or treacherous, to have such great influence with me, we should have been living at the height of bliss. As it is, since friends bid us hope, I will do my best to prevent my weakness of health from failing to second your efforts. I fully understand the magnitude of the difficulty, and how much easier it will turn out to have been to stay at home than to get back. However, if we have all the tribunes on our side, if we find Lentulus as zealous as he appears to be, if, finally, we have Pompey and Caesar, there is no reason to despair. About our slaves, we will do what you say is the opinion of our friends. As to this place, by this time the epidemic has taken its departure; but while it lasted, it did not touch me. Plancius, the kindest of men, desires me to stay with him and still keeps me from departing. I wanted to be in a less frequented district in Epirus, to which neither Hispo nor soldiers would come, but as yet Plancius keeps me from going; he hopes that he may possibly quit his province for Italy in my company. And if ever I see that day, and come once more into your arms, and if I ever recover you all and myself, I shall consider that I have reaped a sufficient harvest both of your piety and my own. Piso's kindness, virtue, and affection toward us all are so great that nothing can surpass them. I hope his conduct may be a source of pleasure to him, a source of glory I see clearly that it will be. I did not mean to find fault with you about my brother Quintus, but I wished that you all, especially considering how few there are of you, should be as closely united as possible. Those whom you wished me to thank I have thanked, and told them that my information came from you. As to what you say in your letter, my dear Terentia, about your intention of selling the village, alas! in heaven's name, what will become of you? And if the same ill-fortune continues to pursue us, what will become of our poor boy? I cannot write the rest — so violent is my outburst of weeping, and I will not reduce you to the same tearful condition. I only add this: if my friends remain loyal to me, there will be no lack of money; if not, you will not be able to effect our object out of your own purse. In the name of our unhappy fortunes, beware how we put the finishing stroke to the boy's ruin. If he has something to keep him from absolute want, he will need only moderate character and moderate luck to attain the rest. See to your health, and mind you send me letter-carriers, that I may know what is going on and what you are all doing. I have in any case only a short time to wait. Give my love to Tulliola and Cicero. Good-bye. P.S.-I have come to Dyrrachium both because it is a free state, very kindly disposed to me, and the nearest point to Italy. But if the crowded condition of the place offends me, I shall take myself elsewhere and I will write you word.

§ Fam.14.3  LXXXIII (Fam. XIV, 3) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) DYRRACHIUM, 29 NOVEMBER: Greetings to his Terentia, Tulliola, and Cicero. I have received three letters from the hands of Aristocritus, which I almost obliterated with tears. For I am thoroughly weakened with sorrow, my dear Terentia, and it is not my own miseries that torture me more than yours — and yours, my children! Moreover, I am more miserable than you in this, that whereas the disaster is shared by us both, yet the fault is all my own. It was my duty to have avoided the danger by accepting a legation, or to resist it by careful management and the resources at my command, or to fall like a brave man. Nothing was more pitiful, more base, or more unworthy of myself than the line I actually took. Accordingly, it is with shame as well as grief that I am overpowered. For I am ashamed of not having exhibited courage and care to a most excellent wife and most darling children. I have, day and night, before my eyes the mourning dresses, the tears of you all, and the weakness of your own health, while the hope of recall presented to me is slender indeed. Many are hostile, nearly all jealous. To expel me had been difficult, to keep me out is easy. However, as long as you entertain any hope, I will not give way, lest all should seem lost by my fault. As to your anxiety for my personal safety, that is now the easiest thing in the world for me, for even my enemies desire me to go on living in this utter wretchedness. I will, however, do as you bid me. I have thanked the friends you desired me to thank, and I have delivered the letters to Dexippus, and have mentioned that you had informed me of their kindness. That our Piso has shown surprising zeal and kindness to us I can see for myself, but everybody also tells me of it. God grant that I may be allowed, along with you and our children, to enjoy the actual society of such a son-in-law! For the present our one remaining hope is in the new tribunes, and that, too, in the first days of their office; if the matter is allowed to get stale, it is all over with us. It is for that reason that I have sent Aristocritus back to you at once, in order that you may be able to write to me on the spot as to the first official steps taken, and the progress of the whole business; although I have also given Dexippus orders to hurry back here at once, and I have sent a message to my brother to despatch letter-carriers frequently. For the professed object of my being at Dyrrachium at the present juncture is that I may hear as speedily as possible what is being done; and I am in no personal danger, for this town has always been defended by me. When I am told that enemies are on their way here I shall retire into Epirus. As to your coming to me, as you say you will if I wish it — for my part, knowing that a large part of this burden is supported by you, I should like you to remain where you are. If you succeed in your attempt I must come to you: but if, on the other hand — but I needn't write the rest. From your first, or at most, your second letter, I shall be able to decide what I must do. Only be sure you tell me everything with the greatest minuteness, although I ought now to be looking out for some practical step rather than a letter. Take care of your health, and assure yourself that nothing is or has ever been dearer to me than you are. Good-bye, my dear Terentia, whom I seem to see before my eyes, and so am dissolved in tears. Good-bye! 29 November.

§ Fam.5.4  LXXXVIII (Fam. V, 4) TO Q. METELLUS THE CONSUL (AT ROME) DYRRACHIUM (JANUARY) A letter from my brother Quintus, and one from my friend Titus Pomponius, had given me so much hope, that I depended on your assistance no less than on that of your colleague. Accordingly, I at once sent you a letter in which, as my present position required, I offered you thanks and asked for the continuance of your assistance. Later on, not so much the letters of my friends, as the conversation of travellers by this route, indicated that your feelings had undergone a change; and that circumstance prevented my venturing to trouble you with letters. Now, however, my brother Quintus has sent me a copy which he had made of your exceedingly kind speech delivered in the senate. Induced by this I have attempted to write to you, and I do ask and beg of you, as far as I may without giving you offence, to preserve your own friends along with me, rather than attack me to satisfy the unreasonable vindictiveness of your connexions. You have, indeed, conquered yourself so far as to lay aside your own enmity for the sake of the Republic: will you be induced to support that of others agaznst the interests of the Republic? But if you will in your clemency now give me assistance, I promise you that I will be at your service henceforth: but if neither magistrates, nor senate, nor people are permitted to aid nie, owing to the violence which has proved too strong for me, and for the state as well, take care lest — though you may wish the opportunity back again for retaining all and sundry in their rights-you find yourself unable to do so, because there will be nobody to be retained.

§ Fam.7.26  XCIII (Fam. VII, 26) TO M. FADIUS GALLUS (AT ROME) TUSCULUM (? DECEMBER) Having been suffering for nine days past from a severe disorder of the bowels, and being unable to convince those who desired my services that I was ill because I had no fever, I fled to my Tusculan villa, after having, in fact, observed for two days so strict a fast as not even to drink a drop of water. Accordingly, being thoroughly reduced by weakness and hunger, I was more in want of your services than I thought mine could be required by you. For myself, while shrinking from all illnesses, I especially shrink from that in regard to which the Stoics attack your friend Epicurus for saying that "he suffered from strangury and pains in the bowels" — the latter of which complaints they attribute to gluttony, the former to a still graver indulgence. I had been really much afraid of dysentery. But either the change of residence, or the mere relaxation of anxiety, or perhaps the natural abatement of the complaint from lapse of time, seems to me to have done me good. However, to prevent your wondering how this Came about, or in what manner I let myself in for it, I must tell you that the sumptuary law, supposed to have introduced plain living, was the origin of my misfortune. For whilst your epicures wish to bring into fashion the products of the earth, which are not forbidden by the law, they flavour mushrooms, petits choux, and every kind of pot-herb so as to make them the most tempting dishes possible. Having fallen a victim to these in the augural banquet at the house of Lentulus, I was seized with a violent diarrhoea, which, I think, has been checked today for the first time. And so I, who abstain from oysters and lampreys without any difficulty, have been beguiled by beet and mallows. Henceforth, therefore, I shall be more cautious. Yet, having heard of it from Anicius — for he saw me turning sick — you had every reason not only for sending to inquire, but even for coming to see me. I am thinking of remaining here till I am thoroughly restored, for I have lost both strength and flesh. However, if I can once get completely rid of my complaint, I shall, I hope, easily recover these.

§ Fam.1.1  XCIV (Fam. I, 1) TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA) ROME, 13 JANUARY: Whatever attention or affection I may show you, though it may seem sufficient in the eyes of others, can never seem sufficient in my own. For such has been the magnitude of your services to me that, inasmuch as you never rested till my affair was brought to a conclusion, while I cannot effect the same in your cause, I regard my life as a burden. The difficulties are these. The king's agent, Hammonius, is openly attacking us by bribery. The business is being carried out by means of the same money-lenders as it was when you were in town. Such people as wish it done for the king's sake — and they are few — are all for intrusting the business to Pompey. The senate supports the trumped — up religious scruple, not from any respect to religion, but from ill-feeling towards him, and disgust at the king's outrageous bribery. I never cease advising and instigating Pompey — even frankly finding fault with and admonishing him — to avoid what would be a most discreditable imputation. But he really leaves no room for either entreaties or admonitions from me. For, whether in everyday conversation or in the senate, no one could support your cause with greater eloquence, seriousness, zeal, and energy than he has done, testifying in the highest terms to your services to himself and his affection for you. Marcellinus, you know, is incensed with his flute-playing majesty. In everything, saving and excepting this case of the king, he professes the intention of being your champion. We take what he gives: nothing can move him from his motion as to the religious difficulty, which he made up his mind to bring, and has, in fact, brought several times before the senate. The debate up to the Ides (for I am writing early in the morning of the Ides ) has been as follows: Hortensius and I and Lucullus voted for yielding to the religious scruple as far as concerned the army, for otherwise there was no possibility of get ting the matter through, but, in accordance with the decree already passed on your own motion, were for directing you to restore the king, "so far as you may do so without detriment to the state": so that while the religious difficulty prohibits the employment of an army, the senate might still retain you as the person authorized. Crassus votes for sending three legates, not excluding Pompey: for he would allow them to be selected even from such as are at present in possession of imperlum. Bibulus is for three legates selected from men without imperium. The other consulars agree with the latter, except Servilius, who says that he ought not to be restored at all: and Volcatius, who on the motion of Lupus votes for giving the business to Pompey: and Afranius, who agrees with Volcatius. This last fact increases the suspicion as to Pompey's wishes: for it was noticed that Pompey's intimates agreed with Volcatius. We are in a very great difficulty: the day seems going against us. The notorious colloguing and eagerness of Libo and Hypsaeus, and the earnestness displayed by Pompey's intimates, have produced an impression that Pompey desires it; and those who don't want him to have it are at the same time annoyed with your having put power into his hands. I have the less influence in the case because I am under an obligation to you. Moreover, whatever influence I might have had is extinguished by the idea people entertain as to Pompey's wishes, for they think they are gratifying him. We are in much the same position as we were long before your departure: now, as then, the sore has been fomented secretly by the king himself and by the friends and intimates of Pompey, and then openly irritated by the consulars, till the popular prejudice has been excited to the highest pitch. All the world shall recognize my loyalty, and your friends on the spot shall see my affection for you though you are absent. If there were any good faith in those most bound to show it, we should be in no difficulty at all.

§ Fam.1.2  XCV (Fam. I, 2) TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA) ROME, 15 JANUARY: NOTHING was done on the 13th of January in the senate, because the day was to a great extent spent in an altercation between the consul Lentulus and the tribune Caninius. On that day I also spoke at considerable length, and thought that I made a very great impression on the senate by dwelling on your affection for the house. Accordingly, next day we resolved that we would deliver our Opinions briefly: for it appeared to us that the feelings of the senate had been softened towards us — the result not only of my speech, but of my personal appeal and application to individual senators. Accordingly, the first proposition, that of Bibulus, having been delivered, that three legates should restore the king: the second, that of Hortensius, that you should restore him without an army: the third, that of Volcatius, that Pompey should do it, a demand was made that the proposal of Bibulus should be taken in two parts. As far as he dealt with the religious difficulty — a point which was now past being opposed — his motion was carried; his proposition as to three legates was defeated by a large majority. The next was the proposition of Hortensius. Thereupon the tribune Lupus, on the ground that he had himself made a proposal about Pompey, starts the contention that he ought to divide the house before the consuls. His speech was received on all sides by loud cries of "No": for it was both unfair and unprecedented. The consuls would not give in, and yet did not oppose with any vigour. Their object was to waste the day, and in that they succeeded for they saw very well that many times the number would vote for the proposal of Hortensius, although they openly professed their agreement with Volcatius. Large numbers were called upon for their opinion, and that, too, with the assent of the consuls: for they wanted the proposal of Bibulus carried. This dispute was protracted till nightfall, and the senate was dismissed. I happened to be dining with Pompey on that day, and I seized the opportunity — the best I have ever had, for since your departure I have never occupied a more honourable position in the senate than I had on that day — of talking to him in such a way, that I think I induced him to give up every other idea and resolve to support your claims. And, indeed, when I actually hear him talk, I acquit him entirely of all suspicion of personal ambition: but when I regard his intimates of every rank, I perceive, what is no secret to anybody, that this whole business has been long ago corruptly manipulated by a certain coterie, not without the king's own consent and that of his advisers. I write this on the 15th of January, before daybreak. Today there is to be a meeting of the senate. We shall maintain, as I hope, our position in the senate as far as it is possible to do so in such an age of perfidy and unfair dealing. As to an appeal to the people on the subject, we have, I think, secured that no proposition can be brought before them without neglect of the auspices or breach of the laws, or, in fine, without downright violence. The day before my writing these words a resolution of the senate on these matters of the most serious character was passed, and though Cato and Caninius vetoed it, it was nevertheless written out. I suppose it has been sent to you. On all other matters I will write and tell you what has been done, whatever it is, and I will see that everything is carried out with the most scrupulous fairness as far as my caution, labour, attention to details, and influence can secure it.

§ Fam.1.3  XCVI (Fam. I, 3) TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA) ROME (?JANUARY) M. Cicero presents his compliments to P. Lentulus, proconsul. Aulus Trebonius, who has important business in your province, both of wide extent and sound, is an intimate friend of mine of many years standing. As before this. he has always, both from his brilliant position and the recommendations of myself and his other friends, enjoyed the highest popularity in the province, so at the present time, trusting to your affection for me and our close ties, he feels sure that this letter of mine will give him a high place in your esteem. That he may not be disappointed in that hope I earnestly beg of you, and I commend to you all his business concerns, his freedmen, agents, and servants; and specially that you will confirm the decrees made by T. Ampius in his regard, and treat him in all respects so as to convince him that my recommendation is no mere ordinary one.

§ Fam.1.4  XCVII (Fam. I, 4) TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA) ROME, JANUARY: Though in the senate of the 15th of January we made a most glorious stand, seeing that on the previous day we had defeated the proposal of Bibulus about the three legates, and the only contest left was with the proposal of Volcatius, yet the business was spun out by our opponents by various obstructive tactics. For we were carrying our view in a full senate, in spite of the multifarious devices and inveterate jealousy of those who were for transferring the cause of the king from you to some one else. That day we found Curio very bitterly opposed, Bibulus much more fair, almost friendly even. Caninius and Cato declared that they would not propose any law before the elections. By thelex Pupia, as you know, no senate could be held before the 1st of February, nor in fact during the whole of February, unless the business of the legations were finished or adjourned. However, the Roman people are generally of opinion that the pretext of a trumped — up religious scruple has been introduced by your jealous detractors, not so much to hinder you, as to prevent anyone from wishing to go to Alexandria with a view of getting the command of an army. However, everyone thinks that the senate has had a regard for your position. For there is no one that is ignorant of the fact that it was all the doing of your opponents that no division took place: and if they, under the pretext of a regard for the people, but really from the most unprincipled villainy, attempt to carry anything, I have taken very good care that they shall not be able to do so without violating the auspices or the laws, or, in fact, without absolute violence. I don't think I need write a word either about my own zeal or the injurious proceedings of certain persons. For why should I make any display myself-since, if I were even to shed my blood in defence of your position, I should think that I had not covered a tithe of your services to me? Or why complain of the injurious conduct of others, which I cannot do without the deepest pain? I cannot at all pledge myself to you as to the effect of open violence, especially with such feeble magistrates but, open violence out of the question, I can assure you that you will retain your high position, if the warmest affections both of the senate and the Roman people can secure it to you.

§ Fam.1.5  XCVIII (Fam. I, 5) TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA) ROME, FEBRUARY: Though the first wish of my heart is that my warmest gratitude to you should be recognized first of all by yourself and then by everybody else, yet I am deeply grieved that such a state of things has followed your departure as to give you occasion, in your absence, to test the loyalty and good disposition towards you both of myself and others. That you see and feel that men are showing the same loyalty in main taining your position as I experienced in the matter of my restoration, I have understood from your letter. Just when I was depending most securely on my policy, zeal, activity, and influence in the matter of the king, there was suddenly sprung on us the abominable bill of Cato's, to hamper all our zeal and withdraw our thoughts from a lesser anxiety to a most serious alarm. However, in a political upset of that kind, though there is nothing that is not a source of terror, yet the thing to be chiefly feared is treachery: and Cato, at any rate, whatever happens, we have no hesitation in opposing. As to the business of Alexandria and the cause of the king, I can only promise you thus much, that I will to the utmost of my power satisfy both you, who are absent, and your friends who are here. But I fear the king's cause may either be snatched from our hands or abandoned altogether, and I cannot easily make up my mind which of the two alternatives I would least wish. But if the worst comes to the worst, there is a third alternative, which is not wholly displeasing either to Selicius or myself-namely, that we should not let the matter drop, and yet should not allow the appointment, in spite of our protests, to be transferred to the man to whom it is now regarded as practically transferred. We will take the utmost care not to omit struggling for any point that it seems possible to maintain, and not to present the appearance of defeat if we have in any case failed to maintain it. You must show your wisdom and greatness of mind by regarding your fame and high position as resting on your virtue, your public services, and the dignity of your character, and by believing that, if the perfidy of certain individuals has deprived you of any of those honours which fortune has lavished on you, it will be more injurious to them than to you. I never let any opportunity slip either of acting or thinking for your interests. I avail myself of the aid of Q. Selicius in everything: nor do I think that there is any one of all your friends either shrewder, or more faithful, or more attached to you.

§ 56.102  CII (Fam. I, 5b) TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA) ROME (FEBRUARY) WHAT is being done and has been done here I imagine you know from letters of numerous correspondents and from messengers but what are still matters for conjecture, and seem likely to take place, I think I ought to write and tell you. After Pompey had been roughly treated with shouts and insulting remarks, while speaking before the people on the 7th of February in defence of Milo, and had been accused in the senate by Cato in exceedingly harsh and bitter terms amidst profound silence, he appeared to me to be very much upset in his mind. Accordingly, he seems to me to have quite given up any idea of the Alexandrine business-which, as far as we are concerned, remains exactly where it was, for the senate has taken nothing from you except what, owing to the same religious difficulty, cannot be granted to anyone else. My hope and my earnest endeavour now is that the king, when he understands that he cannot obtain what he had in his mind-restoration by Pompey — and that, unless restored by you, he will be abandoned, and neglected, should pay you a visit. This he will do without any hesitation, if Pompey gives the least hint of his approval. But you know that man's deliberate ways and obstinate reserve. However, I will omit nothing that may contribute to that result. The other injurious proceedings instituted by Cato I shall, I hope, have no difficulty in resisting. I perceive that none of the consulars are friendly to you except Hortensius and Lucullus; the rest are either hostile, without openly showing it, or undisguisedly incensed. Keep a brave and high spirit, and feel Confident that the result will be to utterly repulse the attack of a most Contemptible fellow, and to retain your high position and fame.

§ Fam.1.6  CIII (Fam. I, 6) TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA) ROME (FEBRUARY) What is going on you will learn from Polijo, who not only was engaged in all the transactions, but was the leader in them. In my own deep distress, occasioned by the course your business has taken, I am chiefly consoled by the hope which makes me strongly suspect that the dishonest practices of men will be defeated both by the measures of your friends and by mere lapse of time, which must have a tendency to weaken the plans of your enemies and of traitors. In the second place, I derive a ready consolation from the memory of my own dangers, of which I see a reflexion in your fortunes. For though your position is attacked in a less important particular than that which brought mine to the ground, yet the analogy is so strong, that I trust you will pardon me if I am not frightened at what you did not yourself consider ought to cause alarm. But show yourself the man I have known you to be, to use a Greek expression, "since your nails were soft." The injurious conduct of men will, believe me, only make your greatness more conspicuous. Expect from me the greatest zeal and devotion in everything: I will not falsify your expectation.

§ Fam.5.12  CVIII (Fam. V, 12) TO L. LUCCEIUS ARPINUM (APRIL) I have often tried to say to you personally what I am about to write, but was prevented by a kind of almost clownish bashfulness. Now that I am not in your presence I shall speak out more boldly: a letter does not blush. I am inflamed with an inconceivably ardent desire, and one, as I think, of which I have no reason to be ashamed, that in a history written by you my name should be conspicuous and frequently mentioned with praise. And though you have often shown me that you meant to do so, yet I hope you will pardon my impatience. For the style of your composition, though I had always entertained the highest expectations of it, has yet surpassed my hopes, and has taken such a hold upon me, or rather has so fired my imagination, that I was eager to have my achievements as quickly as possible put on record in your history. For it is not only the thought of being spoken of by future ages that makes me snatch at what seems a hope of immortality, but it is also the desire of fully enjoying in my lifetime an authoritative expression of your judgment, or a token of your kindness for me, or the charm of your genius. Not, however, that while thus writing I am unaware under what heavy burdens you are labouring in the portion of history you have undertaken, and by this time have begun to write. But because I saw that your history of the Italian and Civil Wars was now all but finished, and because also you told me that you were already embarking upon the remaining portions of your work, I determined not to lose my chance for the want of suggesting to you to consider whether you preferred to weave your account of me into the main context of your history, or whether, as many Greek writers have done-Callisthenes, the Phocian War; Timaeus, the war of Pyrrhus; Polybius, that of Numantia; all of whom separated the wars I have named from their main narratives-you would, like them, separate the civil conspiracy from public and external wars. For my part, I do not see that it matters much to my reputation, but it does somewhat concern my impatience, that you should not wait till you come to the proper place, but should at once anticipate the discussion of that question as a whole and the history of that epoch. And at the same time, if your whole thoughts are engaged on one incident and one person, I can see in imagination how much fuller your material will be, and how much more elaborately worked out. I am quite aware, however, what little modesty I display, first, in imposing on you so heavy a burden (for your engagements may well prevent your compliance with my request), and in the second place, in asking you to show me off to advantage. What if those transactions are not in your judgment so very deserving of Commendation? Yet, after all, a man who has once passed the border-line of modesty had better put a bold face on it and be frankly impudent. And so I again and again ask you outright, both to praise those actions of mine in warmer terms than you perhaps feel, and in that respect to neglect the laws of history. I ask you, too, in regard to the personal predilection, on which you wrote in a certain introductory chapter in the most gratifying and explicit terms — and by which you show that you were as incapable of being diverted as Xenophon's Hercules by Pleasure — not to go against it, but to yield to your affection for me a little more than truth shall justify./ But if I can induce you to undertake this, you will have, I am persuaded, matter worthy of your genius and your wealth of language. For from the beginning of the conspiracy to my return from exile it appears to me that a moderate-sized monograph might be composed, in which you will, on the one hand, be able to utilize your special knowledge of civil disturbances, either in unravelling the causes of the revolution or in proposing remedies for evils, blaming meanwhile what you think deserves denunciation, and establishing the righteousness of what you approve by explaining the principles on which they rest: and on the other hand, if you think it right to be more outspoken (as you generally do), you will bring out the perfidy, intrigues, and treachery of many people towards me. For my vicissitudes will supply you in your composition with much variety, which has in itself a kind of charm, capable of taking a strong hold on the imagination of readers, when you are the writer. For nothing is better fitted to interest a reader than variety of Circumstance and vicissitudes of fortune, which, thought he reverse of welcome to us in actual experience, will make very pleasant reading: for the untroubled recollection of a past sorrow has a charm of its own. To the rest of the world, indeed, who have had no trouble themselves, and who look upon the misfortunes of others without any suffering of their own, the feeling of pity is itself a source of pleasure. For what man of us is not delighted, though feeling a certain compassion too, with the death-scene of Epa minondas at Mantinea? He, you know, did not allow the dart to be drawn from his body until he had been told, in answer to his question, that his shield was safe, so that in spite of the agony of his wound he died calmly and with glory. Whose interest is not roused and sustained by the banishment and return of Themistocles? Truly the mere chronological record of the annals has very little charm for us — little more than the entries in the fasti: but the doubtful and varied fortunes of a man, frequently of eminent character, involve feelings of wonder, suspense, joy, sorrow, hope, fear: if these fortunes are crowned with a glorious death, the imagination is satisfied with the most fascinating delight which reading can give. 'Therefore it will be more in accordance with my wishes if you come to the resolution to separate from the main body of your narrative, in which you embrace a continuous history of events, what I may call the drama of my actions and fortunes: for it includes varied acts, and shifting scenes both of policy and circumstance. Nor am I afraid of appearing to lay snares for your favour by flattering suggestions, when I declare that I desire to be complimented and mentioned with praise by you above all other writers. For you are not the man to be ignorant of your own powers, or not to be sure that those who withhold their admiration of you are more to be accounted jealous, than those who praise you flatterers. Nor, again, am I so senseless as to wish to be consecrated to an eternity of fame by one who, in so consecrating me, does not also gain for himself the glory which rightfully belongs to genius. For the famous Alexander himself did not wish to be painted by Apelles, and to have his statue made by Lysippus above all others, merely from personal favour to them, but because he thought that their art would be a glory at once to them and to himself. And, indeed, those artists used to make images of the person known to strangers: but if such had never existed, illustrious men would yet be no less illustrious. The Spartan Agesilaus, who would not allow a portrait of himself to be painted or a statue made, deserves to be quoted as an example quite as much as those who have taken trouble about such representations: for a single pamphlet of Xenophon's in praise of that king has proved much more effective than all the portraits and statues of them all. And, moreover, it will more redound to my present exultation and the honour of my memory to have found my way into your history, than if I had done so into that of others, in this, that I shall profit not only by the genius of the writer — as Timoleon did by that of Timaeus, Themistocles by that of Herodotus — but also by the authority of a man of a most illustrious and well-established character, and one well known and of the first repute for his conduct in the most important and weighty matters of state; so that I shall seem to have gained not only the fame which Alexander on his visit to Sigeum said had been bestowed on Achilles by Homer, but also the weighty testimony of a great and illustrious man. For I like that saying of Hector in Naevius, who not only rejoices that he is "praised," but adds, "and by one who has himself been "praised." But if I fail to obtain my request from you, which is equivalent to saying, if you are by some means prevented — for I hold it to be out of the question that you would refuse a request of mine — I shall perhaps be forced to do what certain persons have often found fault with, write my own panegyric, a thing, after all, which has a precedent of many illustrious men. But it will not escape your notice that there are the following drawbacks in a composition of that sort: men are bound, when writing of themselves, both to speak with greater reserve of what is praiseworthy, and to omit what calls for blame. Added to which such writing carries less conviction, less weight; many people, in fine, carp at it, and say that the heralds at the public games are more modest, for after having placed garlands on the other recipients and proclaimed their names in a loud voice, when their own turn comes to be presented with a garland before the games break up, they call in the services of another herald, that they may not declare themselves victors with their own voice. I wish to avoid all this, and, if you undertake my cause, I shall avoid it: and, accordingly, I ask you this favour. But why, you may well ask, when you have already often assured me that you intended to record in your book with the utmost minuteness the policy and events of my consulship, do I now make this request to you with such earnestness and in so many words? The reason is to be found in that burning desire, of which I spoke at the beginning of my letter, for something prompt: because I am in a flutter of impatience, both that men should learn what I am from your books, while I am still alive, and that I may myself in my lifetime have the full enjoyment of my little bit of glory. What you intend doing on this subject I should like you to write me word, if not troublesome to you. For if you do undertake the subject, I will put together some notes of all occurrences: but if you put me off to some future time, I will talk the matter over with you. Meanwhile, do not relax your efforts, and thoroughly polish what you have already on the stocks, and continue to love me.

§ Fam.5.3  CXII (Fam. V, 3) TO CICERO FROM Q. METELLUS NEPOS (IN SPAIN) The insults of a most outrageous person, with which he loads me in frequent public speeches, are alleviated by your kind services to me; and as they are of little weight as coming from a man of that character, they are regarded by me with contempt, and I am quite pleased by an interchange of persons to regard you in the light of a cousin. Him I don't wish even to remember, though I have twice saved his life in his own despite. Not to be too troublesome to you about my affairs, I have written to Lollius as to what I want done about my provincial accounts, with a view to his informing and reminding you. If you can, I hope you will preserve your old goodwill to me.

§ Fam.1.7  CXIII (Fam. I, 7) TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA) ROME (OCTOBER) I have read your letter in which you say that you are obliged for the frequent information I give you about all current events, and for the clear proof you have of my kindness to yourself. The latter — the regarding you with warm affection — it is my duty to do, if I wish to maintain the character which you desired for me; the former it is a pleasure to do, namely, separated as we are by length of space and time, to converse with you as frequently as possible by means of letters. But if this shall occur less frequently than you expect, the reason will be that my letters are of such a kind that I dare not trust them to everybody promiscuously. As often as I get hold of trustworthy persons to whom I may safely deliver them, I will not omit to do so. As to your question about each particular person's loyalty and friendly feelings towards you, it is difficult to speak in regard to individuals. I can venture on this one assertion, which I often hinted to you before, and now write from close observation and knowledge — that certain persons, and those, above all others, who were most bound and most able to help you, have been exceedingly jealous of your claims: and that, though the point in question is different, your present position is exceedingly like what mine was some time ago in this, that those whom you had attacked on public grounds now openly assail you, while those whose authority, rank, and policy you had defended, are not so much mindful of your kindness as enemies to your reputation. In these circumstances, as I wrote you word before, I perceive that Hortensius is very warmly your friend, Lucullus anxious to serve you: while of the magistrates L. Racilius shows special loyalty and affection. For my taking up the cudgels for you, and advocating your claims, would seem in the eyes of most people to be the measure of my obligation to you rather than of my deliberate opinion. Besides these I am, in fact, not able to bear witness to any one of the consulars showing zeal or kindness or friendly feeling towards you. For you are aware that Pompey, who is very frequently accustomed, not on my instigation but of his own accord, to confide in me about you, did not often attend the senate during these discussions. It is true your last letter, as I could easily conceive, was very gratifying to him. To me, indeed, your reasonableness, or rather your extreme wisdom, seemed not only charming, but simply admirable. For by that letter you retained your hold on a man of lofty character, who was bound to you by the signal generosity of your conduct towards him, but who was entertaining some suspicions that, owing to the impression prevailing among certain persons as to his own ambitious desires, you were alienated from him. I always thought that he wished to support your reputation, even in that very dubious episode of Caninius's proposal; but when he had read your letter, I could plainly see that he was thinking with his whole soul of you, your honours, and your interests. Wherefore look upon what I am going to write as written after frequent discussions with him, in accordance with his opinion, and with the weight of his authority. It is this: "That, since no senatorial decree exists taking the restoration of the Alexandrine king out of your hands, and since the resolution written out upon that restoration (which, as you are aware, was vetoed) to the effect that no one was to restore the king at all, has rather the weight of a measure adopted by men in anger than of a deliberate decision of the senate — you can yourself see, since you are in possession of Cilicia and Cyprus, what it is within your power to effect and secure; and that, if circumstances seem to make it possible for you to occupy Alexandria and Egypt, it is for your own dignity and that of the empire that, after having first placed the king at Ptolemais or some neighbouring place, you should proceed with fleet and army to Alexandria, in order that, when you have secured it by restoring peace and placing a garrison in it, Ptolemy may go back to his kingdom: thus it will be brought about that he is restored at once by your agency, as the senate originally voted, and without a 'host,' as those who are scrupulous about religion said was the order of the Sibyl." But though both he and I agreed in this decision, we yet thought that men would judge of your policy by its result: if it turns out as we wish and desire everybody will say that you acted wisely and courageously if any hitch occurs, those same men will say that you acted ambitiously and rashly. Wherefore what you really can do it is not so easy for us to judge as for you who have Egypt almost within sight For us, our view is this if you are certain that you can get possession of that kingdom, you should not delay: if it is doubtful, you should not make the attempt. I can guarantee you this, that, if you succeed, you will be applauded by many while abroad, by all when you return. I see great danger in any failure, on account of the senatorial resolution and the religious scruple that have been introduced into the question. But for me, as I exhort you to snatch at what is certain to bring you credit, so I warn you against running any risks, and I return to what I said at the beginning of my letter — that men will judge all you do, not so much from the policy which prompted it as from its result. But if this method of procedure appears to you to be dangerous, our opinion is that, if the king fulfils his obligations to those of your friends, who throughout your province and sphere of government have lent him money, you should assist him both with troops and supplies: such is the nature and convenient situation of your province, that you either secure his restoration by giving him aid, or hinder it by neglecting to do so. In carrying out this policy you will perceive better and more easily than anyone else what the actual state of affairs, the nature of the case, and the circumstances of the hour admit: what our opinion was I thought that I was the person, above all others, to tell you. As to your congratulations to myself on my present position, on my intimacy with Milo, on the frivolity and impotency of Clodius — I am not at all surprised that, like a first-rate artist, you take pleasure in the brilliant works of your own hands. However, people's wrong-headedness — I don't like to use a harsher word — surpasses belief; they might have secured me by their sympathy in a cause in which they were all equally interested, yet they have alienated me by their jealousy: for by their carping and most malicious criticisms I must tell you that I have been all but driven from that old political standpoint of mine, so long maintained, not, it is true, so far as to forget my position, but far enough to admit at length some consideration for my personal safety also. Both might have been amply secured if there had been any good faith, any solidity in our consulars: but such is the frivolity of most of them, that they do not so much take pleasure in my political consistency, as offence at my brilliant position. I am the more outspoken in writing this to you, because you lent your support, not only to my present position, which I obtained through you, but also long ago to my reputation and political eminence, when they were, so to speak, but just coming into existence; and at the same time because I see that it was not, as I used formerly to think, my want of curule pedigree that excited prejudice: for I have noticed in your case, one of the noblest of the land, a similar exhibition of base jealousy, and though they did not object to class you among the oblesse, they were unwilling that you should take any higher flight. I rejoice that your fortune has been unlike mine: for there is a great difference between having one's reputation lowered and one's personal safety abandoned to the enemy. In my case it was your noble conduct that prevented me from being too much disgusted with my own; for you secured that men should consider more to have been added to my future glory than had been taken from my present fortune. As for you — instigated both by your kindness to myself and my affection for you, I urge you to use all your care and industry to obtain the full glory, for which you have burned with such generous ardour from boyhood, and never, under anyone's injurious conduct, to bend that high spirit of yours, which I have always admired and always loved. Men have a high opinion of you; they loudly praise your liberality; they vividly remember your consulship. You must surely perceive how much more marked, and how much more prominent these sentiments will be, if backed up by some considerable repute from your province and your government. However, in every administrative act which you have to perform by means of your army and in virtue of your imperium, I would have you reflect on these objects long before you act, prepare yourself with a view to them, turn them over in your mind, train yourself to obtain them, and convince yourself that you can with the greatest ease maintain the highest and most exalted position in the state. This you have always looked for, and I am sure you understand that you have attained it. And that you may not think this exhortation of mine meaningless or adopted without reason, I should explain that the consideration which has moved me to make it was the conviction that you required to be warned by the incidents, which our careers have had in common, to be careful for the rest of your life as to whom to trust and against whom to be on your guard. As to your question about the state of public affairs — there is the most profound difference of opinion, but the energy is all on one side. For those who are strong in wealth, arms, and material power, appear to me to have scored so great a success from the stupidity and fickleness of their opponents, that they are now the stronger in moral weight as well. Accordingly, with very few to oppose them, they have got everything through the senate, which they never expected to get even by the popular vote without a riot: for a grant for military pay and ten legates have been given to Caesar by decree, and no difficulty has been made of deferring the nomination of his successor, as required by the Sempronian law. I say the less to you on this point because this position of public affairs is no pleasure to me: I mention it, however, in order to urge you to learn, while you can do so without suffering for it, the lesson which I myself, though devoted from boyhood to every kind of reading, yet learnt rather from bitter experience than from study, that we must neither consider our personal safety to the exclusion of our dignity, nor our dignity to the exclusion of our safety. In your congratulations as to my daughter and Crassipes I am obliged to you for your kindness, and do indeed expect and hope that this connexion may be a source of pleasure to us. Our dear Lentulus, a young man who gives such splendid promise of the highest qualities, be sure you instruct both in those accomplishments which you have yourself ever been forward in pursuing, and also, above all, in the imitation of yourself: he can study in no better school than that. He holds a very high place in my regard and affection, as well because he is yours, as because he is worthy of such a father, and because he is devoted to me, and has always been so.

§ 56.114  CXIV (Fam. XIII, 6a) TO Q. VALERIUS ORCA (PROCONSUL IN AFRICA) ROME (MAY) If you are well I shall be glad. I am quite well. I presume that you will remember that, when escorting you on the commencement of your official journey, I mentioned to you in the presence of Publius Cuspius, and also afterwards urged you privately at some length, that whomsoever I might recommend to you as connexions of his, you should regard as among connexions of my own. You, as was to be expected from your extreme regard and uninterrupted attentions to me, undertook to do this for me with the utmost liberality and kindness. Cuspius, who is most careful in his duties towards all connected with him, takes a surprising interest in the well-being of certain persons of your province, because he has been twice in Africa when presiding over the very large concerns of his revenue-company. Accordingly, this patronage of his, which he exercises on their behalf, I am accustomed as far as I can to back up by such means and influence as I possess. Wherefore I thought it necessary to explain to you in this letter why I give letters of introduction to all the friends of Cuspius. In future letters I will merely append the mark agreed upon between you and me, and at the same time indicate that he is one of Cuspius's friends. But the recommendation which I have resolved to subscribe to in this present letter, let me tell you, is more serious than any of them. For P. Cuspius has pressed me with particular earnestness to recommend Lucius Iulius to you as warmly as possible. I appear to be barely able to satisfy his eagerness by using the words which I generally use when most in earnest. He asks for something out of the common way from me, and thinks I have a special knack in that style of writing. I have promised him to produce a masterpiece of commendation — a specimen of my choicest work. Since I cannot reach that standard, however, I would beg you to make him think that some astonishing effect has been produced by the style of my letter. You will secure that, if you treat him with all the liberality which your kindness can suggest and your official power make feasible — I don't mean merely in the way of material assistance, but also in words and even in looks: and what influence such things have in a province I could have wished that you had already learnt by experience, though I have an idea that you soon will do so. This man himself, whom I am recommending to you, I believe to be thoroughly worthy of your friendship, not only because Cuspius says so (though that should be enough), but because I know the keenness of his judgment of men and in the selection of his friends. I shall soon be able to judge what has been the effect of this letter, and shall, I feel certain, have reason to thank you. For myself, I shall with zeal and care see to all that I think to be your wish or to concern your interests. Take care of your health.

§ 56.115  CXV (Fam. XIII, 6b) TO Q. VALERIUS ORCA (PROCONSUL IN AFRICA) ROME (MAY) P. Cornelius, who delivers you this letter, has been recommended to me by P. Cuspius, for whose sake you are thoroughly informed from me how much I desire and am bound to do. I earnestly beg you that Cuspius may have as great, early, and frequent occasion as possible to thank me for this introduction.

§ Fam.1.8  CXVIII (Fam. I, 8) TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA) ROME (JANUARY) What debates have taken place in the senate, what determination has been come to in your business, and what Pompey has undertaken to do, all this you will best learn from Marcus Plaetorius, who has not only been engaged in these matters, but has even taken the lead in them, and left nothing undone which the greatest affection for you, the greatest good sense, and the greatest care could do. From the same man you will ascertain the general position of public affairs, which are of such a nature as is not easy to put in writing. They are, it is true, all in the power of our friends, and to such an extent that it does not seem probable that the present generation will witness a change. For my part, as in duty bound, as you advised, and as personal affection and expediency compel, I am attaching myself to the fortunes of the man whose alliance you thought you must court when my fortunes were in question. But you must feel how difficult it is to put away a political conviction, especially when it happens to be right and proved up to the hilt. However, I conform myself to the wishes of him from whom I cannot dissent with any dignity: and this I do not do, as perhaps some may think, from insincerity; for deliberate purpose and, by heaven! affection for Pompey are so powerful with me, that whatever is to his interest, and whatever he wishes, appears to me at once to be altogether right and reasonable. Nor, as I think, would even his opponents be wrong if, seeing that they cannot possibly be his equals, they were to cease to struggle against him. For myself I have another consolation — my character is such that all the world thinks me justified beyond all others, whether I support Pompey's views, or hold my tongue, or even, what is above everything else to my taste, return to my literary pursuits. And this last I certainly shall do, if my friendship for this same man permits it. For those objects which I had at one time in view, after having held the highest offices and endured the greatest fatigues — the power of intervening with dignity in the debates of the senate, and a free hand in dealing with public affairs — these have been entirely abolished, and not more for me than for all. For we all have either to assent to a small clique, to the utter loss of our dignity, or to dissent to no purpose. My chief object in writing to you thus is that you may consider carefully what line you will also take yourself. The whole position of senate, law courts, and indeed of the entire constitution has undergone a complete change. The most we can hope for is tranquillity: and this the men now in supreme power seem likely to give us, if certain persons show somewhat more tolerance of their despotism. The old consular prestige, indeed, of a courageous and consistent senator we must no longer think of: that has been lost by the fault of those who have alienated from the senate both an order once very closely allied to it, and an individual of the most illustrious character. But to return to what more immediately affects your interests — I have ascertained that Pompey is warmly your friend, and with him as consul, to the best of my knowledge and belief, you will get whatever you wish. In this he will have me always at his elbow, and nothing which affects you shall be passed over by me. Nor, in fact, shall I be afraid of boring him, for he will be very glad for his own sake to find me grateful to him. I would have you fully persuaded that there is nothing, however small, affecting your welfare that is not dearer to me than every interest of my own. And entertaining these sentiments, I can satisfy myself indeed, as far as assiduity is concerned, but in actual achievement I cannot do so, just because I cannot reach any proportion of your services to me, I do not say by actual return in kind, but by any return even of feeling. There is is a report that you have won a great victory. Your despatch is anxiously awaited, and I have already talked to Pompey about it. When it arrives, I will show my zeal by calling on the magistrates and members of the senate: and in everything else which may concern you, though I shall strive for more than I can achieve, I shall yet do less than I ought.

§ Fam.7.23  CXXV (Fam. VII, 23) TO M. FADIUS GALLUS ROME (MAY) I had only just arrived from Arpinum when your letter was delivered to me; and from the same bearer I received a letter from Arrianus, in which there was this most liberal offer, that when he came to Rome he would enter my debt to him on whatever day I chose. Pray put yourself in my place: is it consistent with your modesty or mine, first to prefer a request as to the day, and then to ask more than a year's credit? But, my dear Gallus, everything would have been easy, if you had bought the things I wanted, and only up to the price that I wished. However, the purchases which, according to your letter, you have made shall not only be ratified by me, but with gratitude besides: for I fully understand that you have displayed zeal and affection in purchasing (because you thought them worthy of me) things which pleased yourself — a man, as I have ever thought, of the most fastidious judgment in all matters of taste. Still, I should like Damasippus to abide by his decision: for there is absolutely none of those purchases that I care to have. But you, being unacquainted with my habits, have bought four or five of your selection at a price at which I do not value any statues in the world. You compare your Bacchae with Metellus's Muses. Where is the likeness? To begin with, I should never have considered the Muses worth all that money, and I think all the Muses would have approved my judgment: still, it would have been appropriate to a library, and in harmony with my pursuits. But Bacchae! What place is there in my house for them? But, you will say, they are pretty. I know them very well and have often seen them. I would have commissioned you definitely in the case of statues known to me, if I had decided on them. The sort of statues that I am accustomed to buy are such as may adorn a place in a palaestra after the fashion of gymnasia. What, again, have I, the promoter of peace, to do with a statue of Mars? I am glad there was not a statue of Saturn also: for I should have thought these two statues had brought me debt! I should have preferred some representation of Mercury: I might then, I suppose, have made a more favourable bargain with Arrianus. You say you meant the table-stand for yourself; well, if you like it, keep it. But if you have changed your mind I will, of course, have it. For the money you have laid out, indeed, I would rather have purchased a place of call at Tarracina, to prevent my being always a burden on my host. Altogether I perceive that the fault is with my freedman, whom I had distinctly commissioned to purchase certain definite things, and also with Iunius, whom I think you know, an intimate friend of Arrianus. I have constructed some new sitting-rooms in a miniature colonnade on my Tusculan property. I want to ornament them with pictures: for if I take pleasure in anything of that sort it is in painting. However, if I am to have what you have bought, I should like you to inform me where they are, when they are to be fetched, and by what kind of conveyance. For if Damasippus doesn't abide by hs decision, I shall look for some would-be Damasippus, even at a loss. As to what you say about the house, as I was going out of town I intrusted the matter to my daughter Tullia: for it was at the very hour of my departure that I got your letter. I also discussed the matter with your friend Nicias, because he is, as you know, intimate with Cassius. On my return, however, before I got your last letter, I asked Tullia what she had done. She said that she had approached Licinia (though I think Cassius is not very intimate with his sister), and that she at once said that she could not venture, in the absence of her husband (Dexius is gone to Spain), to change houses without his being there and knowing about it. I am much gratified that you should value association with me and my domestic life so highly, as, in the first place, to take a house which would enable you to live not only near me, but absolutely with me, and, in the second place, to be in such a hurry to make this change of residence. But, upon my life, I do not yield to you in eagerness for that arrangement. So I will try every means in my power. For I see the advantage to myself, and, indeed, the advantages to us both. If I succeed in doing anything, I will let you know. Mind you also write me word back on everything, and let me know, if you please, when I am to expect you.

§ Fam.7.1  CXXVI (Fam. VII, 1) TO M. MARIUS (AT CUMAE) ROME (OCTOBER?) If some bodily pain or weakness of health has prevented your coming to the games, I put it down to fortune rather than your own wisdom: but if you have made up your mind that these things which the rest of the world admires are only worthy of contempt, and, though your health would have allowed of it, you yet were unwilling to come, then I rejoice at both facts — that you were free from bodily pain, and that you had the sound sense to disdain what others causelessly admire. Only I hope that some fruit of your leisure may be forthcoming, a leisure, indeed, which you had a splendid opportunity of enjoying to the full, seeing that you were left almost alone in your lovely country. For I doubt not that in that study of yours, from which you have opened a window into the Stabian waters of the bay, and obtained a view of Misenum, you have spent the morning hours of those days in light reading, while those who left you there were watching the ordinary farces half asleep. The remaining parts of the day, too, you spent in the pleasures which you had yourself arranged to suit your own taste, while we had to endure whatever had met with the approval of Spurius Maecius. On the whole, if you care to know, the games were most splendid, but not to your taste. I judge from my own. For, to begin with, as a special honour to the occasion, those actors had come back to the stage who, I thought, had left it for their own. Indeed, your favourite, my friend Aesop, was in such a state that no one could say a word against his retiring from the profession. On beginning to recite the oath his voice failed him at the words "If I knowingly deceive." Why should I go on with the story? You know all about the rest of the games, which hadn't even that amount of charm which games on a moderate scale generally have: for the spectacle was so elaborate as to leave no room for cheerful enjoyment, and I think you need feel no regret at having missed it. For what is the pleasure of a train of six hundred mules in the "Clytemnestra," or three thousand bowls in the "Trojan Horse," or gay-coloured armour of infantry and cavalry in some battle? These things roused the admiration of the vulgar; to you they would have brought no delight. But if during those days you listened to your reader Protogenes, so long at least as he read anything rather than my speeches, surely you had far greater pleasure than any one of us. For I don't suppose you wanted to see Greek or Oscan plays, especially as you can see Oscan farces in your senate-house over there, while you are so far from liking Greeks, that you generally won't even go along the Greek road to your villa. Why, again, should I suppose you to care about missing the athletes, since you disdained the gladiators? in which even Pompey himself confesses that he lost his trouble and his pains. There remain the two wild-beast hunts, lasting five days, magnificent — nobody denies it — and yet, what pleasure can it be to a man of refinement, when either a weak man is torn by an extremely powerful animal, or a splendid animal is transfixed by a hunting spear? Things which, after all, if worth seeing, you have often seen before; nor did I, who was present at the games, see anything the least new. The last day was that of the elephants, on which there was a great deal of astonishment on the part of the vulgar crowd, but no pleasure whatever. Nay, there was even a certain feeling of compassion aroused by it, and a kind of belief created that that animal has something in common with mankind. However, for my part, during this day, while the theatrical exhibitions were on, lest by chance you should think me too blessed, I almost split my lungs in defending your friend Caninius Gallus. But if the people were as indulgent to me as they were to Aesop, I would, by heaven, have been glad to abandon my profession and live with you and others like us. The fact is I was tired of it before, even when both age and ambition stirred me on, and when I could also decline any defence that I didn't like; but now, with things in the state that they are, there is no life worth having. For, on the one hand, I expect no profit of my labour; and, on the other, I am sometimes forced to defend men who have been no friends to me, at the request of those to whom I am under obligations. Accordingly, I am on the look-out for every excuse for at last managing my life according to my own taste, and I loudly applaud and vehemently approve both you and your retired plan of life: and as to your infrequent appearances among us, I am the more resigned to that because, were you in Rome, I should be prevented from enjoying the charm of your society, and so would you of mine, if I have any, by the overpowering nature of my engagements; from which, if I get any relief — for entire release I don't expect — I will give even you, who have been studying nothing else for many years, some hints as to what it is to live a life of cultivated enjoyment. Only be careful to nurse your weak health and to continue your present care of it, so that you may be able to visit my country houses and make excursions with me in my litter. I have written you a longer letter than usual, from superabundance, not of leisure, but of affection, because, if you remember, you asked me in one of your letters to write you something to prevent you feeling sorry at having missed the games. And if I have succeeded in that, I am glad: if not, I yet console myself with this reflexion, that in future you will both come to the games and come to see me, and will not leave your hope of enjoyment dependent on my letters.

§ Fam.13.74  CXXVII (Fam. XIII, 74) TO Q. PHILIPPUS (PROCONSUL IN ASIA) ROME Though, considering your attention to me and our close ties, I have no doubt of your remembering my recommendation, yet I again and again recommend to you the same L. Oppius, my intimate friend who is now in Rome, and the business of L. Egnatius, my very intimate friend who is now abroad. With the latter my connexion and intimacy are so strong, that I could not be more anxious if the business were my own. Wherefore I shall be highly gratified if you take the trouble to make him feel that I have as high a place in your affections as I think I have. You cannot oblige me more than by doing so: and I beg you warmly to do it.

§ Fam.13.40  CXXVIII (Fam. XIII, 40) TO Q. ANCHARIUS (PROCONSUL IN MACEDONIA) ROME Lucius and Gaius, sons of Lucius Aurelius, with whom, as with their excellent father, I am most intimately acquainted, I recommend to you with more than usual earnestness, as young men endowed with the best qualities, as being very closely allied to myself, and as being in the highest degree worthy of your friendship. If any recommendations of mine have ever had influence with you, as I know that many have had much, I beg you to let this one have it. If you treat them with honour and kindness, you will not only have attached to yourself two very grateful and excellent young men, but you will also have done me the very greatest favour.

§ Fam.5.8  CXXX (Fam. V, 8) TO M. LICINIUS CRASSUS (ON HIS WAY TO SYRIA) ROME (JANUARY) I have no doubt all your friends have written to tell you what zeal I displayed on the — - in the defence, or you might call it the promotion, of your official position. For it was neither half-hearted nor inconspicuous, nor of a sort that could be passed over in silence. In fact, I maintained a controversy against both the consuls and many consulars with a vehemence such as I have never shown in any cause before, and I took upon myself the standing defence of all your honours, and paid the duty I owed to our friendship — long in arrears, but interrupted by the great complexity of events — to the very utmost. Not, believe me, that the will to show you attention and honour was ever wanting to me; but certain pestilent persons — vexed at another's fame — did at times alienate you from me, and sometimes changed my feelings towards you. But I have got the opportunity, for which I had rather wished than hoped, of showing you in the very height of your prosperity that I remember our mutual kindness and am faithful to our friendship. For I have secured not only that your whole family, but that the entire city should know that you have no warmer friend than myself. Accordingly, that most noble of women, your wife, as well as your two most affectionate, virtuous, and popular sons, place full confidence in my counsel, advice, zeal, and public actions; and the senate and Roman people understand that in your absence there is nothing upon which you can so absolutely count and depend as upon my exertions, care, attention, and influence in all matters which affect your interests. What has been done and is being done in the senate I imagine that you are informed in the letters from members of your family. For myself, I am very anxious that you should think and believe that I did not stumble upon the task of supporting your dignity from some sudden whim or by chance, but that from the first moment of my entering on public life I have always looked out to see how I might be most closely united to you. And, indeed, from that hour I never remember either my respect for you, or your very great kindness and liberality to me, to have failed. If certain interruptions of friendship have occurred, based rather on suspicion than fact, let them, as groundless and imaginary, be uprooted from our entire memory and life. For such is your character, and such I desire mine to be, that, fate having brought us face to face with the same condition of public affairs, I would fain hope that our union and friendship will turn out to be for the credit of us both. Wherefore how much consideration should in your judgment be shown to me, you will yourself decide, and that decision, I hope, will be in accordance with my position in the state. I, for my part, promise and guarantee a special and unequaled zeal in every service which may tend to your honour and reputation. And even if in this I shall have many rivals, I shall yet easily surpass them all in the judgment of the rest of the world as well as that of your sons, for both of whom I have a particular affection; but while equally well-disposed to Marcus, I am more entirely devoted to Publius for this reason, that, though he always did so from boyhood, he is at this particular time treating me with the respect and affection of a second father. I would have you believe that this letter will have the force of a treaty, not of a mere epistle; and that I will most sacredly observe and most carefully perform what I hereby promise and undertake. The defence of your political position which I have taken up in your absence I will abide by, not only for the sake of our friendship, but also for the sake of my own character for consistency. Therefore I thought it sufficient at this time to tell you this that if there was anything which I understood to be your wish or for your advantage or for your honour, I should do it without waiting to be asked; but that if I received a hint from yourself or your family on any point, I should take care to convince you that no letter of your own or any request from any of your family has been in vain. Wherefore I would wish you to write to me on all matters, great, small, or indifferent, as to a most cordial friend; and to bid your family so to make use of my activity, advice, authority, and influence in all business matters — public or private, forensic or domestic, whether your own or those of your friends, guests, or clients — that, as far as such a thing is possible, the loss of your presence may be lessened by my labour.

§ Fam.7.5  CXXXIII (Fam. VII, 5) TO CAESAR (IN GAUL) ROME (FEBRUARY) Cicero greets Caesar, Imperator. Observe how far I have convinced myself that you are my second self, not only in matters which concern me personally, but even in those which concern my friends. It had been my intention to take Gaius Trebatius with me for whatever destination I should be leaving town, in order to bring him home again honoured as much as my zeal and favour could make him. But when Pompey remained at home longer than I expected, and a certain hesitation on my part (with which you are not unacquainted) appeared to hinder, or at any rate to retard, my departure, I presumed upon what I will now explain to you. I begin to wish that Trebatius should look to you for what he had hoped from me, and, in fact, I have been no more sparing of my promises of goodwill on your part than I had been wont to be of my own. Moreover, an extraordinary coincidence has occurred which seems to support my opinion and to guarantee your kindness. For just as I was speaking to our friend Balbus about this very Trebatius at my house, with more than usual earnestness, a letter from you was handed to me, at the end of which you say: "Miscinius Rufus, whom you recommend to me, I will make king of Gaul, or, if you choose, put him under the care of Lepta. Send me some one else to promote." I and Balbus both lifted our hands in surprise: it came so exactly in the nick of time, that it appeared to be less the result of mere chance than something providential. I therefore send you Trebatius, and on two grounds, first that it was my spontaneous idea to send him, and secondly because you have invited me to do so. I would beg you, dear Caesar, to receive him with such a display of kindness as to concentrate on his single person all that you can be possibly induced to bestow for my sake upon my friends. As for him I guarantee — not in the sense of that hackneyed expression of mine, at which, when I used it in writing to you about Milo, you very properly jested, but in good Roman language such as sober men use — that no honester, better, or more modest man exists. Added to this, he is at the top of his profession as a jurisconsult, possesses an unequaled memory, and the most profound learning. For such a man I ask neither a tribuneship, prefecture, nor any definite office, I ask only your goodwill and liberality: and yet I do not wish to prevent your complimenting him, if it so please you, with even these marks of distinction. In fact, I transfer him entirely from my hand, so to speak, to yours, which is as sure a pledge of good faith as of victory. Excuse my being somewhat importunate, though with a man like you there can hardly be any pretext for it — however, I feel that it will be allowed to pass. Be careful of your health and continue to love me as ever.

§ Fam.7.6  CXXXV (Fam. VII, 6) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) CUMAE (APRIL) In all my letters to Caesar or Balbus there is a sort of statutory appendix containing a recommendation of you, and not one of the ordinary kind, but accompanied by some signal mark of my warm feeling towards you. See only that you get rid of that feeble regret of yours for the city and city ways, and carry out with persistence and courage what you had in your mind when you set out. We, your friends, shall pardon your going away for that purpose as much as "The wealthy noble dames who held the Corinthian peak" pardoned Medea, whom, with hands whitened to the utmost with chalk, she persuaded not to think ill of her for being absent from her fatherland: for "Many have served themselves abroad and served the state as well; Many have spent their lives at home to be but counted fools." In which latter category you would have certainly been, had I not forced you abroad. But I will write more another time. You who learnt to look out for others, look out, while in Britain, that you are not yourself taken in by the charioteers; and, since I have begun quoting the Medea, remember this line: "The sage who cannot serve himself is vainly wise I ween." Take care of your health.

§ Fam.7.7  CXXXVI (Fam. VII, 7) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (ON HIS WAY TO GAUL) CUMAE (APRIL OR MAY) For my part, I never cease recommending you, but I am eager to know from you how far my recommendation is of service. My chief hope is in Balbus, to whom I write about you with the greatest earnestness and frequency. It often excites my wonder that I don't hear from you as often as from my brother Quintus. In Britain I am told there is no gold or silver. If that turns out to be the case, I advise you to capture a war-chariot and hasten back to us at the earliest opportunity. But if — letting Britain alone — we can still obtain what we want, take care to get on intimate terms with Caesar. In that respect my brother will be of much use to you, so will Balbus, but most of all, believe me, your own modesty and industry. You have an imperator of the most liberal character, your age is exactly the best one for employment, and your recommendation at any rate is quite unique, so that all you have to fear is not doing yourself full justice.

§ Fam.7.8  CXXXIX (Fam. VII, 8) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (JUNE) Caesar has written me a very courteous letter saying that he has not yet seen as much of you as he could wish, owing to his press of business, but that he certainly will do so. I have answered his letter and told him how much obliged I shall be if he bestows on you as much attention, kindness, and liberality as he can. But I gathered from your letters that you are in somewhat too great a hurry: and at the same time I wondered why you despised the profits of a military tribuneship, especially as you are exempted from the labour of military duty. I shall express my discontent to Vacerra and Manilius: for I dare not say a word to Cornelius, who is responsible for your unwise conduct, since you profess to have learnt legal wisdom from him. Rather press on your opportunity and the means put into your hands, than which none better will ever be found. As to what you say of the jurist Precianus, I never cease recommending you to him; for he writes me word that you owe him thanks. Be sure to let me know to what that refers. I am waiting for a letter from you dated "Britain."

§ Fam.7.9  CXLIV (Fam. VII, 9) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (SEPTEMBER) It is a long time since I heard how you were getting on: for you don't write, nor have I written to you for the last two months. As you were not with my brother Quintus I did not know where to send a letter, or to whom to give it. I am anxious to know how you are and where you mean to winter. For my part, my opinion is that you should do so with Caesar; but I have not ventured to write to him owing to his mourning. I would rather you put off your return to us, so long as you come with fuller pockets. There is nothing to make you hurry home, especially since "Battara" is dead. But you are quite capable of thinking for yourself. I desire to know what you have settled. There is a certain Cn. Octavius or Cn. Cornelius, a friend of yours, "Of highest race begot, a son of Earth." He has frequently asked me to dinner, because he knows that you are an intimate friend of mine. At present he has not succeeded in getting me: however, I am much obliged to him.

§ Fam.7.17  CXLV (Fam. VII, 17) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (SEPTEMBER) From what I gather from your letter I have thanked my brother Quintus, and can besides at last heartily commend you, because you at length seem to have come to some fixed resolution. For I was much put out by your letters in the first months of your absence, because at times you seemed to me — pardon the expression — to be light-minded in your longing for the city and city life, at others timid in undertaking military work, and often even a little inclined to presumption — a thing as unlike your usual self as can be. For, as though you had brought a bill of exchange, and not a letter of recommendation to your commander-in-chief, you were all in a hurry to get your money and return home; and it never occurred to you that those who went to Alexandria with real bills of exchange have as yet not been able to get a farthing. If I looked only to my own interests, I should wish, above all things, to have you with me: for I used to find not only pleasure of no ordinary kind in your society, but also much advantage from your advice and active assistance. But since from your earliest manhood you had devoted yourself to my friendship and protection, I thought it my duty not only to see that you came to no harm, but to advance your fortunes and secure your promotion. Accordingly, as long as I thought I should be going abroad to a province, I am sure you remember the voluntary offers I made you. After that plan had been changed, perceiving that I was being treated by Caesar with the highest consideration, and was regarded by him with unusual affection, and knowing as I did his incredible liberality and unsurpassed loyalty to his word, I recommended you to him in the weightiest and most earnest words at my command. And he accepted this recommendation in a gratifying manner, and repeatedly indicated to me in writing and showed you by word and deed, that he had been powerfully affected by my recommendation. Having got such a man as your patron, if you believe me to have any insight, or to be your well-wisher, do not let him go; and if by chance something at times has annoyed you, when from being busy or in difficulties he has seemed to you somewhat slow to serve you, hold on and wait for the end, which I guarantee will be gratifying and honourable to you. I need not exhort you at any greater length: I only give you this warning, that you will never find a better opportunity, if you let this slip, either of securing the friendship of a most illustrious and liberal man, or of enjoying a wealthier province or a more suitable time of life. "Quintus Cornelius concurred," as you say in your law books. I am glad you didn't go to Britain, because you have been saved some hard work, and I the necessity of listening to your stories about that expedition. Pray write to me at full length as to where you are going to winter, and what your hopes and present position are.

§ 54.147.2  After my return to Rome from Arpinum I was told that Hippodamus had started to join you. I cannot say that I was surprised at his having acted so discourteously as to start to join you without a letter from me: I only say this, that I was annoyed. For I had long resolved, from an expression in your letter, that if I had anything I wished conveyed to you with more than usual care, I should give it to him: for, in truth, into a letter like this, which I send you in an ordinary way, I usually put nothing that, if it fell into certain hands, might be a source of annoyance. I reserve myself for Minucius and Salvius and Labeo. Labeo will either be starting late or will stay here altogether. Hippodamus did not even ask me whether he could do anything for me. T. Penarius sends me a kind letter about you: says that he is exceedingly charmed with your literary pursuits, conversation, and above all by your dinners. He was always a favourite of mine, and I see a good deal of his brother. Wherefore continue, as you have begun, to admit the young man to your intimacy. From the fact of this letter having been in hand during many days, owing to the delay of the letter-carriers, I have jotted down in it many various things at odd times, as, for instance, the following. Titus Anicius has mentioned to me more than once that he would not hesitate to buy a suburban property for you, if he found one. In these remarks of his I find two things surprising: first, that when you write to him about buying a suburban property, you not only don't write to me to that effect, but write even in a contrary sense; and, secondly, that in writing to him you totally forget his letters which you showed me at Tusculum, and as totally the rule of Epicharmus, "Notice how he has treated another": in fact, that you have quite forgotten, as I think, the lesson conveyed by the expression of his face, his conversation, and his spirit. But this is your concern. As to a suburban property, be sure to let me know your wishes, and at the same time take care that that fellow doesn't get you into trouble. What else have I to say? Anything? Yes, there is this: Gabinius entered the city by night on the 27th of September, and today, at two o'clock, when he ought to have appeared on his trial for lese majeste, in accordance with the edict of C. Alfius, he was all but crushed to the earth by a great and unanimous demonstration of the popular hatred. Nothing could exceed his humiliating position. However, Piso comes next to him. So I think of introducing a marvellous episode into my second book — Apollo declaring in the council of the gods what sort of return that of the two commanders was to be, one of whom had lost, and the other sold his army. From Britain I have a letter of Caesar's dated the 1st of September, which reached me on the 27th, satisfactory enough as far as the British expedition is concerned, in which, to prevent my wondering at not getting one from you, he tells me that you were not with him when he reached the coast. To that letter I made no reply, not even a formal congratulation, on account of his mourning. Many, many wishes, dear brother, for your health.

§ Fam.1.9  CLII (Fam. I, 9) TO P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA) ROME (OCTOBER) M. Cicero desires his warmest regards to P. Lentulus, imperator. Your letter was very gratifying to me, from which I gathered that you fully appreciated my devotion to you: for why use the word kindness, when even the word "devotion" itself, with all its solemn and holy associations, seems too weak to express my obligations to you? As for your saying that my services to you are gratefully accepted, it is you who in your overflowing affection make things, which cannot be omitted without criminal negligence, appear deserving of even gratitude. However, my feelings towards you would have been much more fully known and conspicuous, if during all this time that we have been separated, we had been together, and together at Rome. For precisely in what you declare your intention of doing — what no one is more capable of doing, and what I confidently look forward to from you — that is to say, in speaking in the senate, and in every department of public life and political activity, we should together have been in a very strong position (what my feelings and position are in regard to politics I will explain shortly, and will answer the questions you ask), and at any rate I should have found in you a supporter, at once most warmly attached and endowed with supreme wisdom, while in me you would have found an adviser, perhaps not the most unskillful in the world, and at least both faithful and devoted to your interests. However, for your own sake, of course, I rejoice, as I am bound to do, that you have been greeted with the title of Imperator, and are holding your province and victorious army after a successful campaign. But certainly, if you had been here, you would have enjoyed to a fuller extent and more directly the benefit of the services which I am bound to render you. Moreover, in taking vengeance on those whom you know in some cases to be your enemies, because you championed the cause of my recall, in others to be jealous of the splendid position and renown which that measure brought you, I should have done you yeoman's service as your associate. However, that perpetual enemy of his own friends, who, in spite of having been honoured with the highest compliments on your part, has selected you of all people for the object of his impotent and enfeebled violence, has saved me the trouble by punishing himself. For he has made attempts, the disclosure of which has left him without a shred, not only of political position, but even of freedom of action. And though I should have preferred that you should have gained your experience in my case alone, rather than in your own also, yet in the midst of my regret I am glad that you have learnt what the fidelity of mankind is worth, at no great cost to yourself, which I learnt at the price of excessive pain. And I think that I have now an opportunity presented me, while answering the questions you have addressed to me, of also explaining my entire position and view. You say in your letter that you have been informed that I have become reconciled to Caesar and Appius, and you add that you have no fault to find with that. But you express a wish to know what induced me to defend and compliment Vatinius. In order to make my explanation plainer I must go a little farther back in the statement of my policy and its grounds. Well, Lentulus! At first — after the success of your efforts for my recall — I looked upon myself as having been restored not alone to my friends, but to the Republic also; and seeing that I owed you an affection almost surpassing belief, and every kind of service, however great and rare, that could be bestowed on your person, I thought that to the Republic, which had much assisted you in restoring me, I at least was bound to entertain the feeling which I had in old times showed merely from the duty incumbent on all citizens alike, and not as an obligation incurred by some special kindness to myself. That these were my sentiments I declared to the senate when you were consul, and you had yourself a full view of them in our conversations and discussions. Yet from the very first my feelings were hurt by many circumstances, when, on your mooting the question of the full restoration of my position, I detected the covert hatred of some and the equivocal attachment of others. For you received no support from them either in regard to my monuments, or the illegal violence by which, in common with my brother, I had been driven from my house; nor, by heaven, did they show the goodwill which I had expected in regard to those matters which, though necessary to me owing to the shipwreck of my fortune, were yet regarded by me as least valuable — I mean as to indemnifying me for my losses by decree of the senate. And though I saw all this — for it was not difficult to see — yet their present conduct did not affect me with so much bitterness as what they had done for me did with gratitude. And therefore, though according to your own assertion and testimony I was under very great obligation to Pompey, and though I loved him not only for his kindness, but also from my own feelings, and, so to speak, from my unbroken admiration of him, nevertheless, without taking any account of his wishes, I abode by all my old opinions in politics. With Pompey sitting in court, upon his having entered the city to give evidence in favour of Sestius, and when the witness Vatinius had asserted that, moved by the good fortune and success of Caesar, I had begun to be his friend, I said that I preferred the fortune of Bibulus, which he thought a humiliation, to the triumphs and victories of everybody else; and I said during the examination of the same witness, in another part of my speech, that the same men had prevented Bibulus from leaving his house as had forced me from mine: my whole cross-examination, indeed, was nothing but a denunciation of his tribuneship; and in it I spoke throughout with the greatest freedom and spirit about violence, neglect of omens, grants of royal titles. Nor, indeed, in the support of this view is it only of late that I have spoken. I have done so consistently on several occasions in the senate. Nay, even in the consulship of Marcellinus and Philippus, on the 5th of April the senate voted on my motion that the question of the Campanian land should be referred to a full meeting of the senate on the 15th of May. Could I more decidedly invade the stronghold of his policy, or show more clearly that I forgot my own present interests, and remembered my former political career? On my delivery of this proposal a great impression was made on the minds not only of those who were bound to have been impressed, but also of those of whom I had never expected it. For, after this decree had passed in accordance with my motion, Pompey, without showing the least sign of being offended with me, started for Sardinia and Africa, and in the course of that journey visited Caesar at Luca. There Caesar complained a great deal about my motion, for he had already seen Crassus at Ravenna also, and had been irritated by him against me. It was well known that Pompey was much vexed at this, as I was told by others, but learnt most definitely from my brother. For when Pompey met him in Sardinia, a few days after leaving Luca, he said: "You are the very man I want to see; nothing could have happened more conveniently. Unless you speak very strongly to your brother Marcus, you will have to pay up what you guaranteed on his behalf." I need not go on. He grumbled a great deal: mentioned his own services to me: recalled what he had again and again said to my brother himself about the "acts" of Caesar, and what my brother had undertaken in regard to me; and called my brother himself to witness that what he had done in regard to my recall he had done with the consent of Caesar: and asked him to commend to me the latter's policy and claims, that I should not attack, even if I would not or could not support them. My brother having conveyed these remarks to me, and Pompey having, nevertheless, sent Vibullius to me with a message, begging me not to Commit myself on the question of the Campanian land till his return, I reconsidered my position and begged the state itself, as it were, to allow me, who had suffered and done so much for it, to fulfil the duty which gratitude to my benefactors and the pledge which my brother had given demanded, and to suffer one whom it had ever regarded as an honest citizen to show himself an honest man. Moreover, in regard to all those motions and speeches of mine which appeared to be giving offence to Pompey, the remarks of a particular set of men, whose names you must surely guess, kept on being reported to me; who, while in public affairs they were really in sympathy with my policy, and had always been so, yet said that they were glad that Pompey was dissatisfied with me, and that Caesar would be very greatly exasperated against me. This in itself was vexatious to me: but much more so was the fact that they used, before my very eyes, so to embrace, fondle, make much of, and kiss my enemy — mine do I say? rather the enemy of the laws, of the law courts, of peace, of his country, of all loyal men — that they did not indeed rouse my bile, for I have utterly lost all that, but imagined they did. In these circumstances, having, as far as is possible for human prudence, thoroughly examined my whole position, and having balanced the items of the account, I arrived at a final result of all my reflexions, which, as well as I can, I will now briefly put before you. If I had seen the Republic in the hands of bad or profligate citizens, as we know happened during the supremacy of Cinna, and on some other occasions, I should not under the pressure, I don't say of rewards, which are the last things to influence me, but even of danger, by which, after all, the bravest men are moved, have attached myself to their party, not even if their services to me had been of the very highest kind. As it is, seeing that the leading statesman in the Republic was Pompey, a man who had gained this power and renown by the most eminent services to the state and the most glorious achievements, and one of whose position I had been a supporter from my youth up, and in my praetorship and consulship an active promoter also, and seeing that this same statesman had assisted me, in his own person by the weight of his influence and the expression of his opinion, and, in conjunction with you, by his counsels and zeal, and that he regarded my enemy as his own supreme enemy in the state — I did not think that I need fear the reproach of inconsistency, if in some of my senatorial votes I somewhat changed my standpoint, and contributed my zeal to the promotion of the dignity of a most distinguished man, and one to whom I am under the highest obligations. In this sentiment I had necessarily to include Caesar, as you see, for their policy and position were inseparably united. Here I was greatly influenced by two things — the old friendship which you know that I and my brother Quintus have had with Caesar, and his own kindness and liberality, of which we have recently had clear and unmistakable evidence both by his letters and his personal attentions. I was also strongly affected by the Republic itself, which appeared to me to demand, especially considering Caesar's brilliant successes, that there should be no quarrel maintained with these men, and indeed to forbid it in the strongest manner possible. Moreover, while entertaining these feelings, I was above all shaken by the pledge which Pompey had given for me to Caesar, and my brother to Pompey. Besides, I was forced to take into consideration the state maxim so divinely expressed by our master Plato — "Such as are the chief men in a republic, such are ever wont to be the other citizens." I called to mind that in my consulship, from the very 1st of January, such a foundation was laid of encouragement for the senate, that no one ought to have been surprised that on the 5th of December there was so much spirit and such commanding influence in that house. I also remember that when I became a private citizen up to the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus, when the opinions expressed by me had great weight in the senate, the feeling among all the loyalists was invariable. Afterwards, while you were holding the province of hither Spain with Imperium and the Republic had no genuine consuls, but mere hucksters of provinces, mere slaves and agents of sedition, an accident threw my head as an apple of discord into the midst of contending factions and civil broils. And in that hour of danger, though a unanimity was displayed on the part of the senate that was surprising, on the part of all Italy surpassing belief, and of all the loyalists unparalleled, in standing forth in my defence, I will not say what happened — for the blame attaches to many, and is of various shades of turpitude — I will only say briefly that it was not the rank and file, but the leaders, that played me false. And in this matter, though some blame does attach to those who failed to defend me, no less attaches to those who abandoned me: and if those who were frightened deserve reproach, if there are such, still more are those to be blamed who pretended to be frightened. At any rate, my policy is justly to be praised for refusing to allow my fellow citizens (preserved by me and ardently desiring to preserve me) to be exposed while bereft of leaders to armed slaves, and for preferring that it should be made manifest how much force there might be in the unanimity of the loyalists, if they had been permitted to champion my cause before I had fallen, when after that fall they had proved strong enough to raise me up again. And the real feelings of these men you not only had the penetration to see, when bringing forward my case, but the power to encourage and keep alive. In promoting which measure — I will not merely not deny, but shall always remember also and gladly proclaim it — you found certain men of the highest rank more courageous in securing my restoration than they had been in preserving me from my fall: and, if they had chosen to maintain that frame of mind, they would have recovered their own commanding position along with my salvation. For when the spirit of the loyalists had been renewed by your consulship, and they bad been roused from their dismay by the extreme firmness and rectitude of your official conduct; when, above all, Pompey's support had been secured; and when Caesar, too, with all the prestige of his brilliant achievements, after being honoured with unique and unprecedented marks of distinction and compliments by the senate, was now supporting the dignity of the house, there could have been no opportunity for a disloyal citizen of outraging the Republic. But now notice, I beg, what actually ensued. First of all, that intruder upon the women's rites, who had shown no more respect for the Bona Dea than for his three sisters, secured immunity by the votes of those men who, when a tribune wished by a legal action to exact penalties from a seditious citizen by the agency of the loyalists, deprived the Republic of what would have been hereafter a most splendid precedent for the punishment of sedition. And these same persons, in the case of the monument, which was not mine, indeed — for it was not erected from the proceeds of spoils won by me, and I had nothing to do with it beyond giving out the contract for its construction — well, they allowed this monument of the senate's to have branded upon it the name of a public enemy, and an inscription written in blood. That those men wished my safety rouses my liveliest gratitude, but I could have wished that they had not chosen to take my bare safety into consideration, like doctors, but, like trainers, my strength and complexion also! As it is, just as Apelles perfected the head and bust of his Venus with the most elaborate art, but left the rest of her body in the rough, so certain persons only took pains with my head, and left the rest of my body unfinished and unworked. Yet in this matter I have falsified the expectation, not only of the jealous, but also of the downright hostile, who formerly conceived a wrong opinion from the case of Quintus Metellus, son of Lucius — the most energetic and gallant man in the world, and in my opinion of surpassing courage and firmness — who, people say, was much cast down and dispirited after his return from exile. Now, in the first place, we are asked to believe that a man who accepted exile with entire willingness and remarkable cheerfulness, and never took any pains at all to get recalled, was crushed in spirit about an affair in which he had shown more firmness and constancy than anyone else, even than the pre-eminent M. Scaurus himself! But, again, the account they had received, or rather the conjectures they were indulging in about him, they now transferred to me, imagining that I should be more than usually broken in spirit: whereas, in fact, the Republic was inspiring me with even greater courage than I had ever had before, by making it plain that I was the one citizen it could not do without; and by the fact that while a bill proposed by only one tribune had recalled Metellus, the whole state had joined as one man in recalling me — the senate leading the way, the whole of Italy following after, eight of the tribunes publishing the bill, a consul putting the question at the centuriate assembly, all orders and individuals pressing it on, in fact, with all the forces at its command. Nor is it the case that I afterwards made any pretension, or am making any at this day, which can justly offend anyone, even the most malevolent: my only effort is that I may not fail either my friends or those more remotely connected with me in either active service, or counsel, or personal exertion.

§ 54.152.2  This course of life perhaps offends those who fix their eyes on the glitter and show of my professional position, but are unable to appreciate its anxieties and laboriousness. Again, they make no concealment of their dissatisfaction on the ground that in the speeches which I make in the senate in praise of Caesar I am departing from my old policy. But while giving explanations on the points which I put before you a short time ago, I will not keep till the last the following, which I have already touched upon. You will not find, my dear Lentulus, the sentiments of the loyalists the same as you left them — strengthened by my consulship, suffering relapse at intervals afterwards, crushed down before your consulship, revived by you: they have now been abandoned by those whose duty it was to have maintained them: and this fact they, who in the old state of things as it existed in our day used to be called Optimates, not only declare by look and expression of countenance, by which a false pretence is easiest supported, but have proved again and again by their actual sympathies and votes. Accordingly, the entire view and aim of wise citizens, such as I wish both to be and to be reckoned, must needs have undergone a change. For that is the maxim of that same great Plato, whom I emphatically regard as my master: "Maintain a political controversy only so far as you can convince your fellow citizens of its justice: never offer violence to parent or fatherland." He, it is true, alleges this as his motive for having abstained from politics, because, having found the Athenian people all but in its dotage, and seeing that it could not be ruled by persuasion, or by anything short of compulsion, while he doubted the possibility of persuasion, he looked upon compulsion as criminal. My position was different in this: as the people was not in its dotage, nor the question of engaging in politics still an open one for me, I was bound hand and foot. Yet I rejoiced that I was permitted in one and the same cause to support a policy at once advantageous to myself and acceptable to every loyalist. An additional motive was Caesar's memorable and almost superhuman kindness to myself and my brother, who thus would have deserved my support whatever he undertook; while as it is, considering his great success and his brilliant victories, he would seem, even if he had not behaved to me as he has, to claim a panegyric from me. For I would have you believe that, putting you aside, who were the authors of my recall, there is no one by whose good offices I would not only confess, but would even rejoice, to have been so much bound. Having explained this matter to you, the questions you ask about Vatinius and Crassus are easy to answer. For, since you remark about Appius, as about Caesar, "that you have no fault to find," I can only say that I am glad you approve my policy. But as to Vatinius, in the first place there had been in the interval a reconciliation effected through Pompey, immediately after his election to the praetorship, though I had, it is true, impugned his canditature in some very strong speeches in the senate, and yet not so much for the sake of attacking him as of defending and complimenting Cato. Again, later on, there followed a very pressing request from Caesar that I should undertake his defence. But my reason for testifying to his character I beg you will not ask, either in the case of this defendant or of others, lest I retaliate by asking you the same question when you come home: though I can do so even before you return: for remember for whom you sent a certificate of character from the ends of the earth. However, don't be afraid, for those same persons are praised by myself, and will continue to be so. Yet, after all, there was also the motive spurring me on to undertake his defence, of which, during the trial, when I appeared for him, I remarked that I was doing just what the parasite in the Eunuchus advised the captain to do: "As oft as she names Phaedria, you retort With Pamphila. If ever she suggest, 'Do let us have in Phaedria to our revel:' Quoth you, 'And let us call on Pamphila To sing a song.' If she shall praise his looks, Do you praise hers to match them: and, in fine, Give tit for tat, that you may sting her soul." So I asked the jurors, since certain men of high rank, who had also done me very great favours, were much enamoured of my enemy, and often under my very eyes in the senate now took him aside in grave consultation, now embraced him familiarly and cheerfully — since these men had their Publius, to grant me another Publius, in whose person I might repay a slight attack by a moderate retort. And, indeed, I am often as good as my word, with the applause of gods and men. So much for Vatinius. Now about Crassus. I thought I had done much to secure his gratitude in having, for the sake of the general harmony, wiped out by a kind of voluntary act of oblivion all his very serious injuries, when he suddenly undertook the defence of Gabinius, whom only a few days before he had attacked with the greatest bitterness. Nevertheless, I should have borne that, if he had done so without casting any offensive reflexions on me. But on his attacking me, though I was only arguing and not inveighing against him, I fired up not only, I think, with the passion of the moment — for that perhaps would not have been so hot — but the smothered wrath at his many wrongs to me, of which I thought I had wholly got rid, having, unconsciously to myself, lingered in my soul, it suddenly showed itself in full force. And it was at this precise time that certain persons (the same whom I frequently indicate by a sign or hint), while declaring that they had much enjoyed my outspoken style, and had never before fully realized that I was restored to the Republic in all my old character, and when my conduct of that controversy had gained me much credit outside the house also, began saying that they were glad both that he was now my enemy, and that those who were involved with him would never be my friends. So when their ill-natured remarks were reported to me by men of most respectable character, and when Pompey pressed me as he had never done before to be reconciled to Crassus, and Caesar wrote to say that he was exceedingly grieved at that quarrel, I took into consideration not only my circumstances, but my natural inclination: and Crassus, that our reconciliation might, as it were, be attested to the Roman people, started for his province, it might almost be said, from my hearth. For he himself named a day and dined with me in the suburban villa of my son-in-law Crassipes. On this account, as you say that you have been told, I supported his cause in the senate, which I had undertaken on Pompey's strong recommendation, as I was bound in honour to do. I have now told you with what motives I have supported each measure and cause, and what my position is in politics as far as I take any part in them: and I would wish you to make sure of this — that I should have entertained the same sentiments, if I had been still perfectly uncommitted and free to choose. For I should not have thought it right to fight against such overwhelming power, nor to destroy the supremacy of the most distinguished citizens, even if it had been possible; nor, again, should I have thought myself bound to abide by the same view, when circumstances were changed and the feelings of the loyalists altered, but rather to bow to circumstances. For the persistence in the same view has never been regarded as a merit in men eminent for their guidance of the helm of state; but as in steering a ship one secret of the art is to run before the storm, even if you cannot make the harbour; yet, when you can do so by tacking about, it is folly to keep to the course you have begun rather than by changing it to arrive all the same at the destination you desire: so while we all ought in the administration of the state to keep always in view the object I have very frequently mentioned, peace combined with dignity, we are not bound always to use the same language, but to fix our eyes on the same object. Wherefore, as I laid down a little while ago, if I had had as free a hand as possible in everything, I should yet have been no other than I now am in politics. When, moreover, I am at once induced to adopt these sentiments by the kindness of certain persons, and driven to do so by the injuries of others, I am quite content to think and speak about public affairs as I conceive best conduces to the interests both of myself and of the Republic. Moreover, I make this declaration the more openly and frequently, both because my brother Quintus is Caesar's legate, and because no word of mine, however trivial, to say nothing of any act, in support of Caesar has ever transpired, which he has not received with such marked gratitude, as to make me look upon myself as closely bound to him. Accordingly, I have the advantage of his popularity, which you know to be very great, and his material resources, which you know to be immense, as though they were my own. Nor do I think that I could in any other way have frustrated the plots of unprincipled persons against me, unless I had now combined with those protections, which I have always possessed, the goodwill also of the men in power. I should, to the best of my belief, have followed this same line of policy even if I had had you here. For I well know the reasonableness and soberness of your judgment: I know your mind, while warmly attached to me, to be without a tinge of malevolence to others, but on the contrary as open and candid as it is great and lofty. I have seen certain persons conduct themselves towards you as you might have seen the same persons conduct themselves towards me. The same things that have annoyed me would certainly have annoyed you. But whenever I shall have the enjoyment of your presence, you will be the wise critic of all my plans: you who took thought for my safety will also do so for my dignity. Me, indeed, you will have as the partner and associate in all your actions, sentiments, wishes — in fact, in everything; nor shall I ever in all my life have any purpose so steadfastly before me, as that you should rejoice more and more warmly every day that you did me such eminent service. As to your request that I would send you any books I have written since your departure, there are some speeches, which I will give Menocritus, not so very many, so don't be afraid! I have also written — for I am now rather withdrawing from oratory and returning to the gentler Muses, which now give me greater delight than any others, as they have done since my earliest youth — well, then, I have written in the Aristotelian style, at least that was my aim, three books in the form of a discussion in dialogue On the Orator, which, I think, will be of some service to your Lentulus. For they differ a good deal from the current maxims, and embrace a discussion on the whole oratorical theory of the ancients, both that of Aristotle and Isocrates. I have also written in verse three books On my own Times, which I should have sent you some time ago, if I had thought they ought to be published — for they are witnesses, and will be eternal witnesses, of your services to me and of my affection — but I refrained because I was afraid, not of those who might think themselves attacked, for I have been very sparing and gentle in that respect, but of my benefactors, of whom it were an endless task to mention the whole list. Nevertheless, the books, such as they are, if I find anyone to whom I can safely commit them, I will take care to have conveyed to you: and as far as that part of my life and conduct is concerned, I submit it entirely to your judgment. All that I shall succeed in accomplishing in literature or in learning — my old favourite relaxations — I shall with the utmost cheerfulness place before the bar of your criticism, for you have always had a fondness for such things. As to what you say in your letter about your domestic affairs, and all you charge me to do, I am so attentive to them that I don't like being reminded, can scarcely bear, indeed, to be asked without a very painful feeling. As to your saying, in regard to Quintus's business, that you could not do anything last summer, because you were prevented by illness from crossing to Cilicia, but that you will now do everything in your power to settle it, I may tell you that the fact of the matter is that, if he can annex this property, my brother thinks that he will owe to you the consolidation of this ancestral estate. I should like you to write about all your affairs, and about the studies and training of your son Lentulus (whom I regard as mine also) as confidentially and as frequently as possible, and to believe that there never has been anyone either dearer or more congenial to another than you are to me, and that I will not only make you feel that to be the case, but will make all the world and posterity itself to the latest generation aware of it. Appius used some time back to repeat in conversation, and afterwards said openly, even in the senate, that if he were allowed to carry a law in the comitia curiata, he would draw lots with his colleague for their provinces; but if no curiatian law were passed, he would make an arrangement with his colleague and succeed you: that a curiatian law was a proper thing for a consul, but was not a necessity: that since he was in possession of a province by a decree of the senate, he should have imperium in virtue of the Cornelian law until such time as he entered the city. I don't know what your several connexions write to you on the subject: I understand that opinion varies. There are some who think that you can legally refuse to quit your province, because your successor is named without a curiatian law: some also hold that, even if you do quit it, you may leave some one behind you to conduct its government. For myself, I do not feel so certain about the point of law — although there is not much doubt even about that — as I do of this, that it is for your greatest honour, dignity, and independence, which I know you always value above everything, to hand over your province to a successor without any delay, especially as you cannot thwart his greediness without rousing suspicion of your own. I regard my duty as twofold — to let you know what I think, and to defend what you have done. P.S. — I had written the above when I received your letter about the publicanito whom I could not but admire the justice of your conduct. I could have wished that you had been able by some lucky chance to avoid running counter to the interests and wishes of that order, whose honour you have always promoted. For my part, I shall not cease to defend your decrees: but you know the ways of that class of men; you are aware how bitterly hostile they were to the famous Q. Scaevola himself. However, I advise you to reconcile that order to yourself, or at least soften its feelings, if you can by any means do so. Though difficult, I think it is, nevertheless, not beyond the reach of your sagacity.

§ Fam.7.16  CLVI (Fam. VII, 16) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (NOVEMBER) In the "Trojan Horse," just at the end, you remember the words, "Too late they learn wisdom." You, however, old man, were wise in time. Those first snappy letters of yours were foolish enough, and then — -! I don't at all blame you for not being over-curious in regard to Britain. For the present, however, you seem to be in winter quarters somewhat short of warm clothing, and therefore not caring to stir out: "Not here and there, but everywhere, Be wise and ware: No sharper steel can warrior bear." If I had been by way of dining out, I would not have failed your friend Cn. Octavius; to whom, however, I did remark upon his repeated invitations, "Pray, who are you?" But, by Hercules, joking apart, he is a pretty fellow: I could have wished you had taken him with you! Let me know for certain what you are doing and whether you intend coming to Italy at all this winter. Balbus has assured me that you will be rich. Whether he speaks after the simple Roman fashion, meaning that you will be well supplied with money, or according to the Stoic dictum, that "all are rich who can enjoy the sky and the earth," I shall know hereafter. Those who come from your part accuse you of pride, because they say you won't answer men who put questions to you. However, there is one thing that will please you: they all agree in saying that there is no better lawyer than you at Samarobriva!

§ Fam.7.10  CLX (Fam. VII, 10) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (NOVEMBER) I have read your letter which informs me that our Caesar considers you a great lawyer. You must be glad to have found a country where you have the credit of knowing something. But if you had gone to Britain also, I feel sure that there would not have been in all that great island anyone more learned in the law than you. However — you won't mind my laughing, for you invited me to do so — I am becoming positively a little jealous of you! That you should have been actually sent for by a man whom other people — not because of his pride, but of his many engagements — cannot venture to approach! But in that letter you told me nothing about your success, which, by heaven, is of no less concern to me than my own. I am very much afraid you may be frozen in your winter quarters: and therefore I think you ought to use a good stove. Mucius and Manilius "concur" in this opinion, especially on the ground of your being short of military cloaks. However, I am told that you are having a sufficiently warm time of it where you are — news which made me much alarmed for you. However, in military matters you are much more cautious than at the bar, seeing that you wouldn't take a swim in the ocean, fond of swimming as you are, and wouldn't take a look at the British charioteers, though in old time I could never cheat you even out of a blind-folded gladiator. But enough of joking. You know how earnestly I have written to Caesar about you; I know bow often. Yet, in truth, I have lately ceased doing so, lest I should appear to distrust the kindness of a man who has been most liberal and affectionate to me. However, in the very last letter I wrote I thought he ought to be reminded. I did so. Please tell me what effect it had, and at the same time tell me about your position in general and all your plans. For I am anxious to know what you are doing, what you are expecting, how long your separation from us you think is to last. I would wish you to believe that the one consolation, enabling me to bear your absence, is the knowledge that it is for your advantage. But if that is not so, nothing can be more foolish than both the one and the other of us: me for not inducing you to come back to Rome — you for not flying thither. By heavens, our conversation, whether serious or jesting, will be worth more not only than the enemy, but even than our "brothers" the Haedui. Wherefore let me know about everything as soon as possible: "I'll be some use by comfort, rede, or peif."

§ Fam.1.10  CLXI (Fam. I, 10) TO L. VALERIUS (IN CILICIA) ROME: M. Cicero wishes health to L. Valerius, learned in the law. For why I should not pay you this compliment I don't know, especially considering that in these times one may employ impudence to supply the place of learning. I have written to our friend Lentulus, thanking him earnestly in your name. But I could wish that you would now cease using my letter of introduction and at last come back to us, and prefer a city where you are of some account, to a place where you appear to be the only man of legal learning. However, those who come from where you are either say you are proud because you give no "opinions," or insulting because you give bad ones. But I am now longing to crack a joke with you face to face. So come as soon as ever you can, and don't go and visit your native Apulia, that we may have the joy of welcoming your safe return. For if you go there, like another Ulysses, you will not recognize any of your friends.

§ Fam.13.49  CLXII (Fam. XIII, 49) TO M. CURIUS (A PROCONSUL) ROME: Q. Pompeius, son of Sextus, has become my intimate friend from many causes of long standing. As he has often in the past been accustomed to defend his material interests, as well as his reputation and influence, by my recommendations, so on the present occasion assuredly, with you as governor of the province, he ought to be able to feel that he has never had a warmer recommendation to anyone. Wherefore I beg you with more than ordinary earnestness that, as you ought in view of our close friendship to regard all my friends as your own, you would give the bearer so high a place in your regard, that he may feel that nothing could have been more to his interest and honour than my recommendation. Farewell.

§ Fam.13.60  CLXIII (Fam. XIII, 60) TO C. MUNATIUS (IN A PROVINCE) ROME: L. Livineius Trypho is to begin with a freedman of my most intimate friend L. Regulus (whose disaster makes me more than ever anxious to do him some service — for as far as feeling goes I could not be warmer): but I also am attached to his freedman on his own account, for he showed me very great kindness at that time in my career, when I was best able to see men's real goodwill and fidelity. I recommend him to you with all the warmth that one who is grateful and not oblivious should use in recommending those who have done him good service. You will have greatly gratified me if he is made to feel that in confronting many dangers for my security, and often undertaking voyages in the depths of winter, he has also put you under an obligation in view of your kind feeling towards me.

§ Fam.13.73  CLXIV (Fam. XIII, 73) TO Q. PHILIPPUS (PROCONSUL OF ASIA) ROME: I congratulate you on your safe return to your family from your province, without loss to your reputation or to the state. But if I had seen you at Rome I should also have thanked you for having looked after L. Egnatius, my most intimate friend, who is still absent, and L. Oppius, who is here. With Antipater of Derbe I have become not merely on visiting terms, but really very intimate. I have been told that you are exceedingly angry with him, and I was very sorry to hear it. I have no means of judging the merits of the case, only I am persuaded that a man of your character has done nothing without good reason. However, I do beg of you again and again that, in consideration of our old friendship, you will, for my sake if for anyone's, grant his sons, who are in your power, their liberty, unless you consider that in doing so your reputation may be injured. If I had thought that, I would never have made the request, for your fame is of more importance in my eyes than any friendship with him. But I persuade myself — though I may possibly be mistaken — that this measure will bring you honour rather than abuse. What can be done in the matter, and what you can do for my sake (for as to your willingness I feel no doubt), I should be obliged by your informing me, if it is not too much trouble to you.

§ Fam.2.1  CLXV (Fam. II, 1) TO C. SCRIBONIUS CURIO (IN ASIA) ROME (JANUARY OR FEBRUARY) Though I am sorry that you have suspected me of neglect, yet it was not so annoying to me to have my lack of attention found fault with, as delightful to have it missed by you; especially as in the particular point on which you accuse me I happen to be innocent, while in showing that you miss a letter from me, you avow an affection for me, of which, indeed, I was fully aware, but which, nevertheless, is very soothing and gratifying to my feelings. The fact is that I have never let anyone go, so long, that is, as I thought him likely to reach you, without giving him a letter. Why, was there ever such an untiring correspondent as I? From you, however, I have received two, or at the most three letters — and those extremely brief. Wherefore, if you are a harsh judge of me, I shall find you guilty on precisely the same charge. But if you don't want me to do that, you will have to be considerate to me. However, enough about writing; for I am not afraid of failing to satiate you with my correspondence, especially if you show a just appreciation of my zeal in that department. I have been grieved on the one hand at your long absence from us, because I have lost the advantage of a most delightful intimacy; and yet on the other hand I rejoice at it, because while on this foreign service you have gained all your objects with infinite credit to yourself, and because in all you have undertaken fortune has answered to my wishes. There is one injunction, a very short one, which my unspeakable affection for you compels me to give you. Such lofty expectations are entertained of your spirit, shall I say? or of your ability, that I cannot refrain from imploring and beseeching you to return to us with a character so finished, as to be able to support and maintain the expectations which you have excited. And since no loss of memory will ever obliterate my recollection of your services to me, I beg you not to forget that, whatever increase of fortune or position may befall you, you would not have been able to attain it, had you not as a boy obeyed my most faithful and affectionate counsels. Wherefore it will be your duty to show me such affection, that my age — now on the decline — may find repose in your devotion and youth.

§ Fam.7.11  CLXVI (Fam. VII, 11) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (JANUARY OR FEBRUARY) If you had not left Rome before, you certainly would have left it now. For who wants a lawyer when there are so many interregna? I shall advise all defendants in civil suits to ask each interrex for two adjournments for obtaining legal assistance. Do you think that I have taken a pretty good hint from you as to civil procedure? But come! How are you? What is happening? For I notice in your letter a tendency to be even jocose. These are better signs than the signa in my Tusculan villa. But I want to know what it means. You say, indeed, that you are consulted by Caesar, but I should have preferred his consulting by you. If that is taking place, or you think it likely to take place, by all means persevere in your military service and stay on: I shall console myself for my loss of you by the hope that it will be your gain: but if, on the other hand, things are not paying with you, come back to us. For either something will turn up sooner or later here, or, if not, one conversation between you and me, by heaven, will be worth more than all the Samobrivae in the world. Finally, if you return speedily, there will be no talk about it; but if you stay away much longer without getting anything, I am in terror not only of Laberius, but of our comrade Valerius also. For it would make a capital character for a farce — a British lawyer! I am not laughing though you may laugh, but, as usual, when writing to you, I jest on the most serious subject. Joking apart, I advise you in the most friendly spirit, that if you hold a position for yourself worthy of my introduction, you should put up with the loss of my society and farther your own career and wealth: but if things are stagnant with you there, come back to us. In spite of everything you will get all you want, by your own good qualities certainly, but also by my extreme affection for you.

§ Fam.2.2  CLXVII (Fam. II, 2) TO C. SCRIBONIUS CURIO (IN ASIA) ROME (?FEBRUARY) I have been deprived of a strong witness to my extreme affection for you in the person of your most illustrious father: who would have been fortunate above the common lot, both in his own memorable achievements and in the possession of such a son as yourself, had it been granted him to see you before his departure from life. But I hope our friendship stands in no need of witnesses. Heaven bless your inheritance to you! You will at least have in me one to whom you are as dear and as precious as you have been to your father.

§ Fam.2.3  CLXVIII (Fam. II, 3) TO C. SCRIBONIUS CURIO (IN ASIA) ROME (?FEBRUARY) Rupa was not backward in his wish to promise an exhibition of gladiators in your name, but neither I nor any of your friends approved of anything being done in your absence which would tie your hands when you returned. For my part, I will either write you my opinion at greater length later on, or, to give you no opportunity of preparing an answer to it, I will take you unprepared and state my view by word of mouth against yours. I shall thus either bring you over to my opinion, or at least leave in your mind a record of my view, so that, if at any time (which heaven forbid!) you may see cause to repent of your decision, you may be able to recall mine. Briefly, be assured that your return will find the state of things to be such, that you may gain the highest possible honours in the state more easily by the advantages with which you are endowed by nature, study, and fortune, than by gladiatorial exhibitions. The power of giving such things stirs no feeling of admiration in anyone; for it is wholly a question of means, and not of character — and there is nobody who is not by this time sick and tired of them. But I am not acting as I said I would do, for I am embarking on a statement of the reasons for my opinion. So I will put off this entire discussion to your arrival. Believe me, you are expected with the greatest interest, and hopes are entertained of you such as can only be entertained of the highest virtue and ability. If you are as prepared for this as you ought to be — and I feel certain you are — you will be bestowing on us, your friends, on the whole body of your fellow citizens, and on the entire state, the most numerous and most excellent of exhibitions. You will certainly become aware that no one can be dearer or more precious than you are to me.

§ Fam.7.12  CLXIX (Fam. VII, 12) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (?FEBRUARY) I was wondering what had made you cease writing to me. My friend Pansa has informed me that you have become an Epicurean! What a wonderful camp yours must be! What would you have done if I had sent you to Tarentum instead of Samobriva? I was already a little doubtful about you, when I found you supporting the same doctrine as my friend Selius! But on what ground will you support the principles of civil law, if you act always in your own interest and not in that of your fellow citizens? What, too, is to become of the legal formula in cases of trust, "as should be done among honest men"? For who can be called honest who does nothing except on his own behalf? What principle will you lay down "in dividing a common property," when nothing can be "common" among men who measure all things by their own pleasure? How, again, can you ever think it right to swear by Jupiter lapis, when you know that Jupiter cannot be angry with anyone? What is to become of the people of Ulubrae, if you have decided that it is not right to take part in civic business? Wherefore, if you are really and truly a pervert from our faith, I am much annoyed; but if you merely find it convenient to humour Pansa, I forgive you. Only do write and tell us how you are, and what you want me to do or to look after for you.

§ Fam.7.13  CLXX (Fam. VII, 13) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME; 4 MARCH: Did you suppose me to be so unjust as to be angry with you from the idea that you were not sufficiently persevering and were too eager to return, and do you think that that is the reason of my long silence? I was certainly annoyed by the uneasiness of your spirits, which your first letters conveyed to me; but there was absolutely no other reason for the interruption of my own, except my complete ignorance of your address. Are you still, at this time of day, finding fault with me, and do you refuse to accept my apology? Just listen to me, my dear Testa! Is it money that is making you prouder, or the fact that your commander-in-chief consults you? May I die if I don't believe that such is your vanity that you would rather be consulted by Caesar than gilded by him! But if both reasons are true, who will be able to put up with you except myself, who can put up with anything? But to return to our subject — I am exceedingly glad that you are content to be where you are, and as your former state of mind was vexatious, so your present is gratifying, to me. I am only afraid that your special profession may be of little advantage to you: for, as I am told, in your present abode "They lay no claim by joining lawful hands, But Challenge right with steel." But you are not wont to be called in to assist at a "forcible entry." Nor have you any reason to be afraid of the usual proviso in the injunction, "into which you have not previously made entry by force and armed men," for I am well assured that you are not a man of violence. But to give you some hint as to what you lawyers call "securities," I opine that you should avoid the Treviri; I hear they are real tresviri capitales — deadly customers: I should; have preferred their being tresviri of the mint! But a truce to jesting for the present. Pray write to me in the fullest detail of all that concerns you. 4 March.

§ Fam.7.14  CLXXI (Fam. VII, 14) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME (?MARCH) Chrysippus Vettius, a freedman of the architect Cyrus, made me think that you had not quite forgotten me; for he has brought me a greeting in your words. You have grown a mighty fine gentleman, that you can't take the trouble of writing a letter to me — a man, I might almost say, of your own family! But if you have forgotten how to write, all the fewer clients will lose their causes by having you as their advocate! If you have forgotten me, I will take the trouble of paying you a visit where you are, before I have quite faded out of your mind. If it is a terror of the summer camp that is disheartening you, think of some excuse to get off, as you did in the Case of Britain. I was glad to hear one thing from that same Chrysippus, that you were on friendly terms with Caesar. But, by Hercules, I should have preferred, as I might fairly have expected, to be informed of your fortunes as frequently as possible from your own letters. And this would certainly have been the case, if you had been more forward to learn the laws of friendship than of suits in court. But this is all jest in your own vein, and to some degree in mine also. I love you very dearly, and I both wish to be loved by you and feel certain that I am.

§ Fam.7.18  CLXXII (Fam. VII, 18) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) A VILLA IN THE AGER POMPTINUS, 8 APRIL: I have received several letters from you at the same time, written at various times, in which everything else gave me great pleasure; for they showed that you were now sustaining your military service with a brave spirit, and were a gallant and resolute man. These are qualities which for a short time I felt to be lacking in you, though I attributed your uneasiness not so much to any weakness of your own spirit, as to your feeling your absence from us. Therefore go on as you have begun: endure your service with a stout heart: believe me, the advantages you will gain are many; for I will reiterate my recommendation of you, though I shall wait for the right moment of doing so. Be assured that you are not more anxious that your separation from me should be as profitable as possible to yourself than I am. Accordingly, as your "securities" are somewhat weak, I have sent you one in my poor Greek, written by my own hand. For your part, I should wish you to keep me informed of the course of the war in Gaul: for the less warlike my informant, the more inclined I am to believe him. But to return to your letters. Everything else (as I said) is prettily written, but I do wonder at this: who in the world sends several identical letters, when he writes them with his own hand? For your writing on paper that has been used before, I commend your economy: but I can't help wondering what it was that you preferred to rub out of this bit of paper rather than not write such poor stuff as this — unless it were, perhaps, some of your legal formulas. For I don't suppose you rub out my letters to replace them with your own. Can it mean that there is no business going on, that you are out of work, that you haven't even a supply of paper? Well, that is entirely your own fault, for taking your modesty abroad with you instead of leaving it behind here with us. I will commend you to Balbus, when he starts to join you, in the good old Roman style. Don't be astonished if there is a somewhat longer interval than usual between my letters: for I intend being out of town in April. I write this letter in the Pomptine district, having put up at the villa of M. Aemilius Philemo, from which I could hear the noise of my clients, I mean those you confided to me. For at Ulubrae it is certain that an enormous mass of frogs have bestirred themselves to do me honour. Take care of your health. 8 April, from the Ager Pomptinus. P.S. — Your letter which I received from L. Arruntius I have torn up, though it didn't deserve it for it had nothing in it which might not have been safely read in a public meeting. But not only did Arruntius say that such were your orders, but you had appended a similar injunction to your letter. Well, be it so! I am surprised at your not having written anything to me since, especially as you are in the midst of such stirring events.

§ Fam.7.15  CLXXIII (Fam. VII, 15) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL) ROME: How wayward people are who love may be gathered from this: I was formerly annoyed that you were discontented at being where you are: now, on the contrary, it stings me to the heart that you write that you are quite happy there. For I did not like your not being pleased at my recommendation, and now I am vexed that you can find anything pleasant without me. But, after all, I prefer enduring your absence to your not getting what I hope for you. However, I cannot say how pleased I am that you have become intimate with that most delightful man and excellent scholar, C. Matius. Do your best to make him as fond of you as possible. Believe me, you can bring nothing home from your province that will give you greater pleasure. Take care of your health.

§ Fam.2.4  CLXXIV (Fam. II, 4) TO C. SCRIBONIUS CURIO (IN ASIA) ROME (?MAY) You are aware that letters are of many kinds; but there is one kind which is undeniable, for the sake of which, indeed, the thing was invented, namely, to inform the absent of anything that is to the interest of the writer or recipient that they should know. You, however, certainly don't expect a letter of that kind from me. For of your domestic concerns you have members of your family both to write and to act as messengers. Besides, in my personal affairs there is really nothing new. There are two other kinds of letters which give me great pleasure: the familiar and sportive, and the grave and serious. Which of these two I ought least to employ I do not understand. Am I to jest with you by letter? Upon my word, I don't think the man a good citizen who could laugh in times like these. Shall I write in a more serious style? What could be written of seriously by Cicero to Curio except public affairs? And yet, under this head, my position is such that I neither dare write what I think, nor choose to write what I don't think. Wherefore, since I have no subject left to write about, I will employ my customary phrase, and exhort you to the pursuit of the noblest glory. For you have a dangerous rival already in the field, and fully prepared, in the extraordinary expectation formed of you and this rival you will vanquish with the greatest ease, only on one condition — that you make up your mind to put out your full strength in the cultivation of those qualities, by which the noble actions are accomplished, upon the glory of which you have set your heart. In support of this sentiment I would have written at greater length had not I felt certain that you were sufficiently alive to it of your own accord; and I have touched upon it even thus far, not in order to fire your ambition, but to testify my affection.

§ Fam.2.5  CLXXV (Fam. II, 5) TO C. SCRIBONIUS CURIO (ON HIS WAY FROM ASIA) ROME (?JUNE) The state of business here I dare not tell even in a letter. And though, wherever you are, as I have told you before, you are in the same boat, yet I congratulate you on your absence, as well because you don't see what we see, as because your reputation is placed on a lofty and conspicuous pinnacle in the sight of multitudes both of citizens and allies; and it is conveyed to us by neither obscure nor uncertain talk, but by the loud and unanimous voice of all. There is one thing of which I cannot feel certain — whether to congratulate you, or to be alarmed for you on account of the surprising expectation entertained of your return; not because I am at all afraid of your not satisfying the world's opinion, but, by heaven, lest, when you do come, there may be nothing for you to preserve: so universal is the decline and almost extinction of all our institutions. But even thus much I am afraid I have been rash to trust to a letter wherefore you shall learn the rest from others. However, whether you have still some hope of the Republic, or have given it up in despair, see that you have ready, rehearsed and thought out in your mind, all that the citizen and the man should have at his command who is destined to restore to its ancient dignity and freedom a state crushed and overwhelmed by evil times and profligate morals.

§ Fam.2.6  CLXXVI (Fam. II, 6) TO C. SCRIBONIUS CURIO (ARRIVED IN ITALY) ROME (?JULY) News had not yet reached me of your arrival in Italy when I sent Sext. Villius, an intimate of my friend Milo, with this letter to you. But nevertheless, since your arrival was thought to be approaching, and it was ascertained that you had already started from Asia Rome-wards, the importance of my subject made me dismiss any fear of being premature in sending you this letter, for I was exceedingly anxious that it should reach you as soon as possible. If the obligations, Curio, had only been on your side, and as great as they are usually proclaimed by you rather than as valued by me, I should have been more shy of coming to you for any request of importance which I might have to make. For it is very disagreeable to a modest man to ask a great favour from one whom he thinks under an obligation to himself, lest he should seem rather to demand than to ask what he is seeking, and to regard it more in the light of a debt than of a favour. But since your kindnesses to me were known to the whole world, or rather I should say were made especially prominent and valuable by the very novelty of my circumstances; and since it is the mark of a generous heart to be willing, when much is owed, to reckon the debt at its highest; I did not hesitate to prefer to you by letter a petition for what was of the highest importance and most vital consequence to me of anything in the world. For I was not afraid of being unable to support your kindnesses to me, even though they were beyond calculation: especially as I felt confident that there was no amount of favour for which my heart was incapable of finding room when receiving it, or for which in repayment it could not make a full and brilliant return. I have concentrated and embarked all my zeal, all my efforts, all the care and industry of which I am capable, my every thought, in fact, my whole heart and soul, on securing Milo's consulship; and I have made up my mind that in this matter I ought to look not merely for the profit arising from an act of kindness, but also for the credit of disinterested affection. Nor do I think that anyone was ever so anxious about his own personal safety and his own fortunes as I am for his election, on which I have made up my mind that all my interests depend. To him I see clearly that, if you choose, you can render such substantial help that we need ask for nothing else. We have on our side all these advantages: the favour of the loyalists won since his tribunate on account of his supporting me (as I hope you understand); that of the common multitude on account of the splendour of his gladiatorial exhibitions and the liberality of his disposition; the favour of the young men and of those influential in securing votes, won by his own eminent powers of captivation, shall I call it? or his diligence in that department; lastly, my own electoral support, which, if it is not very powerful, is at any rate regarded as only right, due and proper, and on that account is perhaps influential also. What we want is a leader, and what I may call a controller, or, so to speak, a pilot of those winds which I have described: and if we had to select one such out of the whole world, we should have no one to compare with you. Wherefore, if (as I am sure you can) you can regard me as a grateful, as an honest man, from the mere fact that I am thus eagerly exerting myself for Milo, if, in fine, you think me worthy of your kindness, I do ask you this favour — that you come to the rescue of this anxiety of mine and this crisis in my reputation, or, to put it with greater truth, that you will devote your zeal to what is all but a question of life and death to me. As to Titus Annius himself, I promise you this much — that if you resolve to embrace his cause, you will never have anyone of greater spirit, solidity, firmness, or affection to yourself. While to me you will have given so much additional honour and prestige, that I shall have no difficulty in acknowledging you to have been as effective in supporting my reputation as you were in securing my safety. Did I not know that you must be fully aware, while writing this letter to you, under what a weight of obligation I am labouring, how strongly I am bound to work in this election for Milo, not only with every kind of exertion, but even with downright fighting, I should have written at greater length. As it is, I hand over and commit the business, the cause, and myself wholly and entirely into your hands. Of one thing be sure: if I obtain this help from you, I shall owe you almost more than I owe Milo himself; for my personal safety, in which I have been conspicuously aided by him, has not been as dear to me as the sacred duty of returning the favour will be delightful. That object I feel confident that your aid, and yours alone, will enable me to secure.

§ Fam.13.75  CLXXVII (Fam. XIII, 75) TO TITUS TITIUS, A LEGATUS ROME: Though I have no doubt that my first introduction retains its full value in your eyes, I yet yield to the request of a man with whom I am very intimate, C. Avianius Flaccus, for whose sake I not only desire, but am in duty bound to secure every possible favour. In regard to him I both spoke earnestly to you in a personal interview — on which occasion you answered me with the greatest kindness — and have written with full particulars to you on a previous occasion; but he thinks it to his interest that I should write to you as often as possible. Wherefore I would have you pardon me if in compliance with his wishes, I shall appear to be at all forgetful of the stability of your character. What I beg of you is this — that you would accommodate Avianius as to the place and time for landing his corn: for which he obtained by my influence a three years' licence whilst Pompey was at the head of that business. The chief thing is — and you can therein lay me under the greatest obligation — that you should have convinced Avianius that I enjoy your affection, since he thinks himself secure of mine. You will greatly oblige me by doing this.

§ Fam.5.17  CLXXVIII (Fam. V, 17) TO P. SITTIUS (IN EXILE) ROME: It was not because I had forgotten our friendship, or had any intention of breaking off my correspondence, that I have not written to you of late years. The reason is that the earlier part of them was a period of depression owing to the disaster which had befallen the Republic and myself, while the later period, with your own most distressing and undeserved misfortune, has made me reluctant to write. Since, however, a sufficiently long period has now elapsed, and I have recalled with greater distinctness your high character and lofty courage, I thought it not inconsistent with my purposes to write this to you. For my part, my dear P. Sittius, I defended you originally, when an attempt was made in your absence to bring you into odium and under a criminal charge; and when a charge against you was involved in the accusation and trial of your most intimate friend, I took the very greatest care to safeguard your position and justify you. And, again also, on this last occasion, soon after my return to Rome, though I found that your case had been put on a footing far different from what I should have advised, if I had been there, still I omitted nothing that could contribute to your security. And though on that occasion the ill-feeling arising from the price of corn, the hostility of certain persons, not only to yourself, but to all your friends as well, the unfairness of the whole trial, and many other abuses in the state, had greater influence than the merits of your case or than truth itself, I yet did not fail to serve your son Publius with active assistance, advice, personal influence, and direct testimony. Wherefore, as I have carefully and religiously fulfilled all the other offices of friendship, I thought I ought not to omit that of urging upon you and beseeching you to remember that you are a human being and a gallant man — that is, that you should bear philosophically accidents which are common to all and incalculable, which none of us mortals can shun or forestall by any means whatever: should confront with courage such grief as fortune brings: and should reflect that not in our state alone, but in all others that have acquired an empire, such disasters have in many Instances befallen the bravest and best from unjust verdicts. Oh that I were writing untruly when I say, that you are exiled from a state in which no man of foresight can find anything to give him pleasure! As for your son, again, I fear that, if I write nothing to you, I may seem not to have borne testimony to his high qualities as they deserve; while on the other hand, if I write fully all I feel, I fear that my letter may irritate the smart of your regret. But, after all, your wisest course will be to regard his loyalty, virtue, and steady conduct as being in your possession, and as accompanying you wherever you may be: for, in truth, what we embrace in imagination is no less ours than what we see before our eyes. Wherefore not only ought his brilliant qualities and extreme affection for you to afford you great consolation, but so also ought I and others of your friends who value you, and always will do so, not for your position, but your worth; and so, above all else, ought your own conscience, when you reflect that you have not deserved anything that has befallen you, and when you consider besides that the wise are distressed by guilt, not by mischance — by their own ill-doing, not by the misconduct of others. For my part, I shall omit no opportunity either of consoling or alleviating your present position; for the recollection of our old friendship, and the high character and respectful attentions of your son, will keep me in mind of that duty. If you, on your part, will mention by letter anything you want, I will take care that you shall not think that you have written in vain.

§ Fam.5.18  CLXXIX (Fam. V, 18) TO T. FADIUS (IN EXILE) ROME: Although I too, who am desirous of consoling you, stand in need of consolation myself — for nothing for a long time past has so deeply afflicted me as your disaster — nevertheless I do strongly not only exhort, but even beg and implore you, with all the earnestness that my affection dictates, to summon all your energies, to show a manly courage, and to reflect under what conditions all mortals, and in what times we particularly, have been born. Your virtue has given you more than fortune has taken away: for you have obtained what not many "new men" have obtained; you have lost what many men of the highest rank have lost. Finally, a state of legislation, law courts, and politics generally appears to be imminent, such that the man would seem to be the most fortunate who has quitted such a republic as ours with the lightest possible penalty. As for you, however — since you retain your fortune and children, with myself and others still very closely united to you, whether by relationship or affection — and since you are likely to have much opportunity of living with me and all your friends — and since, again, your condemnation is the only one out of so many that is impugned, because, having been passed by one vote (and that a doubtful one), it is regarded as a concession to a particular person's overwhelming power — for all these reasons, I say, you ought to be as little distressed as possible at the inconvenience that has befallen you. My feeling towards yourself and your children will always be such as you wish, and such as it is in duty bound to be.

§ Fam.3.1  CLXXX (Fam. III, 1) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (IN CILICIA) ROME: Cicero to Appius, imperator. Could the Republic itself speak and tell you of its state, you would not learn it more easily from its own lips than from your freedman Phania: he is a man of such clear insight, as well as (in a good sense) of such keen curiosity! Wherefore he shall explain everything to you: for that will suit me best by enabling me to curtail my letter, and will be more prudent for me in view of other circumstances. But in regard to my good feeling towards you, though you can learn it from this same Phania, yet I think that I also have personally something I ought to say on the subject. For assure yourself of this — that you are exceedingly dear to me, from the many attractions of your character, your kindness, and the goodness of your heart, but also because from your letter, as well as from the remarks of many, I understand that all my conduct towards you has been most warmly appreciated by you. And since that is so, I will take means to make up for the great loss of time, which we have sustained from this interruption of our intercourse, by the liberality, the frequency, and the importance of my services; and that I think I shall do, since you would have it be so, by no means against the grain, or as the phrase is, "against the will of Minerva" — a goddess by the way whom, if I shall chance to get possession of a statue of her from your stock, I shall not simply designate "Pallas," but "Appias." Your freedman Cilix was not well known to me before, but when he delivered me your kind and affectionate letter, he confirmed the courteous expressions of that letter by his own words. I was much gratified by his speech, when he described to me your feelings and the remarks which you were daily making about me. In short, within two days he became my intimate friend, without, how ever, my ceasing to regret Phania deeply. When you send the latter back to Rome, which I imagine you intend speedily to do, pray give him instructions as to all matters which you wish to be transacted or looked after by me. I commend L. Valerius the lawyer to you very strongly; not, however, in his capacity of lawyer: for I wish to take better precautions for him than he does for others. I am really fond of the man: he is one of my closest and most intimate friends. In a general way he expresses nothing but gratitude to you; but he also says that a letter from me will have very great influence with you. I beg you again and again that he may not find himself mistaken.

§ Fam.7.2  CLXXXI (Fam. VII, 2) TO M. MARIUS (IN CAMPANIA) ROME (DECEMBER) I will look after your commission carefully. But, sharp man that you are, you have given your commission to the very person above all others whose interest it is that the article should fetch the highest possible price! However, you have been far-sighted in fixing beforehand how far I am to go. But if you had left it to me, I am so much attached to you that I would have made a bargain with the heirs: as it is, since I know your price, I will put up some one to bid rather than let it go for less. But a truce to jesting! I will do your business with all care, as in duty bound. I feel sure you are glad about Bursa, but your congratulations are too half-hearted. For you suppose, as you say in your letter, that, owing to the fellow's meanness, I don't look upon it as a matter of much rejoicing. I would have you believe that I am more pleased with this verdict than with the death of my enemy. For, in the first place, I would rather win by legal process than by the sword; in the second place, by what brings credit to a friend than by what involves his condemnation. And, above all, I was delighted that the support of the loyalists was given to me so decisively against the influence exerted to an incredible degree by a most illustrious and powerful personage. Finally — though, perhaps, you won't think it likely — I bated this man much more than the notorious Clodius himself. For the latter I bad attacked, the former I had defended. The latter, too, though the very existence of the Republic was to be risked in my person, had yet a certain great object in view; nor was it wholly on his own initiative, but with the support of those who could not be safe as long as I was so. But this ape of a fellow, in sheer wantonness, had selected me as an object for his invectives, and had persuaded certain persons who were jealous of me that he would always be a ready instrument for an attack upon me. Wherefore I bid you rejoice with all your heart: a great stroke has been struck. Never were any citizens more courageous than those who ventured to vote for his condemnation, in the teeth of the immense power of the man by whom the jurors had themselves been selected. And this they never would have done had not my grievance been theirs also. Here, in Rome, I am so distracted by the number of trials, the crowded courts, and the new legislation, that I daily offer prayers that there may be no intercalation, so that I may see you as soon as possible.

§ Fam.3.2  Volume II CLXXXII (Fam. III, 2) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (IN CILICIA) ROME (BEFORE MAY) Though, contrary to my own wishes, and to my surprise, it has turned out that I am obliged to go to a province with imperium, in the midst of many various anxieties and reflexions one consolation occurs to me, that you could have no more friendly successor than I am to you, nor I take over a province from anyone more inclined to hand it over in good order and free from difficulties. And if you, too, entertain the same expectation as to my goodwill towards you, you will certainly never find yourself mistaken. In the name of our intimate union and of your own extraordinary kindness, I again and again beg and beseech you most earnestly, in whatever particulars shall lie in your power — and there are very many in which you will be able to do so — to provide and take measures for my interests. You see that by the decree of the senate I am forced to take a province. If you will, as far as you have the power, hand it over to me as free as possible from difficulties, you will greatly facilitate what I may call the running of my official course. What it may be in your power to do in that direction I leave to you: I confine myself to earnestly begging you to do what occurs to you as being in my interest, I would have written at greater length to you, had either such kindness as yours looked for a longer address, or the friendship between us admitted of it, or had it not been that the matter spoke for itself and required no words. I would have you convinced of this — that if I shall be made aware that my interests have been consulted by you, you will yourself receive from that circumstance a great and abiding satisfaction. [Farewell.]

§ Fam.3.3  CXC (Fam. III, 3) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (IN CILICIA) BRUNDISIUM, 24 MAY: UPON my arrival at Brundisium on the 22nd of May, your legate Q. Fabius Vergilianus was awaiting me, and by your direction put before me what had already occurred, not to me, whom it chiefly concerned, but to the whole Senate — that the province you are holding required a stronger garrison. In fact, nearly all the senators expressed themselves in favour of a reinforcement being enlisted in Italy for my legions and those of Bibulus. Upon Sulpicius declaring that he would not allow that measure, we protested indeed at great length, but so unanimous was the wish of the senate for our early start, that we were obliged to conform to it; and we did so accordingly. As things are now, I beg you, as I did in the letter I gave to your letter-carriers at Rome, that you will make it your object, in consideration of the very intimate union of our sentiments, to bestow attention and care on those details wherein an out-going provincial governor can consult for the advantage of a successor, who is joined to him by the closest ties of interest and affection; so that the whole world may see that I could not have succeeded anyone more kindly disposed to me, nor you have handed over the province to a warmer friend. From the despatch intended to be read in the senate, of which you have sent me a copy, I had gathered that a large number of soldiers had been dismissed by you; but this same Fabius has pointed out that you had thought of doing so, but at the moment of his leaving you, the number of soldiers was still intact. If that is so, you will be doing me a very great favour if you make as small a reduction as possible in the scanty forces you already have: and I imagine that the decrees of the senate passed on this subject have been sent to you. For myself, so highly do I esteem you, that I shall approve of whatever you have done; but I feel confident that you also will do what you will perceive to be most in my interest. I am waiting for my legate C. Pomptinus at Brundisium, and I presume that he will arrive there before the 1st of June. And as soon as he has come I shall avail myself of the first opportunity of sailing that is offered me.

§ Fam.8.1  CXCI (Fam. VIII, 1) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (ON HIS JOURNEY TO CILICIA) ROME, 24 MAY-1 JUNE: As I promised you on the eve of your departure to write a full and careful account of all that went on in the city, I have taken pains to secure a man to describe everything so fully, that I fear his industry in this respect may appear to you somewhat overdone. Although you know your own curiosity, and how men abroad delight in being informed of even the most insignificant things that are going on at home, still in this point I must ask you for a favourable construction — that you should not hold me guilty of giving myself airs in thus performing the duty, because I have delegated this task to another. Not at all because it was not the most delightful thing possible to me — busy as I am and, as you know, the laziest man in the world at writing letters — to keep my memory of you fresh: but the size of the packet itself, which I am sending you, will, in my opinion, easily plead my excuse. It would have required considerable leisure not only to copy out all these details, but even to take notice of them: for the packet Contains all the decrees of the senate, edicts, gossip, and reports. If this specimen does not meet your wishes, let me know, that I may not spend money only to bore you. If anything of unusual importance occurs in public business, which these clerks cannot easily get at, I will myself carefully write you an account of how it was done, what was thought of it, and what is expected to be its result. For the present there is nothing which causes much anticipation. For those rumours as to the admission of the Transpadani to the comitia died out after reaching Cumae: when I got to Rome I didn't find that there was the slightest whisper about it. Besides, Marcellus has not as yet brought before the senate the subject of a successor to the Gallic provinces, and has (as he told me himself) postponed that motion to the 1st of June. He has gone far to bring up again the talk about him which was prevalent when we were in Rome. But pray if; as you wished to do, you have found Pompey at home, write me a full account of what you thought of him, what he said to you, and what wishes he professed to entertain — for he is accustomed to think one thing and say another, and yet is not clever enough to conceal his real aims. As to Caesar, there are frequent and rather ugly reports — at any rate, people keep arriving with mysterious whispers: one says that he has lost his cavalry, which, in my opinion, is without doubt an invention: another says that the seventh legion has had a drubbing, that he himself is besieged among the Bellovaci, and cut off from his main army. But neither is there anything known for certain as yet, nor are even these uncertain rumours publicly bruited abroad after all — they are mentioned as open secrets among the small clique with which you are acquainted; but Domitius, with his finger on his lips, hints at them. On the 24th of May, the quidnuncs of the Rostra, Confound them! spread a loud report that you had been assassinated on your journey by Q. Pompeius. Since I happened to know that Q. Pompeius was dieting himself at Bauli, and was fasting to such an extent that I was sorry for him, I was not agitated, and I only wished that we might compound by this lie for all dangers that might be threatening you. Your friend Plancus, for his part, is at Ravenna, and though he has been presented with a large douceur by Caesar, he is neither wealthy nor well set up. Your books on the Republic are in universal vogue.

§ Fam.3.4  CXCIII (Fam. III, 4) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (IN CILICIA) BRUNDISIUM, 5 JUNE: ON the 4th of June, being at Brundisium, I received your letter stating that you had instructed L. Clodius with what you wished him to say to me. I am much looking forward to his arrival, that I may learn at the earliest possible moment the message he is bringing from you. My warm feeling and readiness to serve you, though I hope they are already known to you by many instances, I shall yet manifest in those circumstances above all others, in which I shall be able to give the most decisive proof that no one's reputation and position is dearer to me than yours. On your side, both Q. Fabius Vergilianus and C. Flaccus, son of Lucius, and — in stronger terms than anyone else — M. Octavius, son of Gneius, have showed me that I am highly valued by you. This I had already judged to be the case on many grounds, but above all from that book on Augural Law, of which, with its most affectionate dedication, you have made me a most delightful present. On my part, all the services which belong to the closest relationship shall be ever at your command. For ever since you began feeling attachment to me, I have learnt daily to value you more highly, and now there has been added to that my intimacy with your relations — for there are two of them of different ages whom I value very highly, Cn. Pompeius, father-in-law of your daughter, and M. Brutus, your son-in-law — and, lastly, the membership of the same college, especially as that has been stamped by such a complimentary expression of your approval, seems to me to have supplied a bond of no ordinary strength towards securing a union of feeling between us. But I shall not only, if I come across Clodius, write you at greater length after talking with him, but shall also take pains myself to see you as soon as possible. Your saying that your motive for staying in the province was the hope of having an interview with me, to tell you the honest truth, is very agreeable to me.

§ Fam.8.2  CXCV (Fam. VIII, 2) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (ON HIS JOURNEY) ROME, JUNE: Itis certainly true, I tell you, that he has been acquitted — I was in court when the verdict was announced — and that, too, by all three orders, and by a unanimous vote in each order. "Well, that is entirely their concern," say you. No, by Hercules! For nothing ever happened so unexpected, or so scandalous in the eyes of everybody. Nay, even I, though I countenanced him with all my might for friendship's sake, and had prepared myself to condole with him, was thunderstruck when it occurred, and thought I must be under some hallucination. What do you suppose, then, was the feeling of others? Why, they attacked the jurors with a storm of disapproving shouts, and made it quite plain that this was more than they could stand. Accordingly, now that he is left to the mercies of the Licinian law, he seems to be in greater danger than ever. Besides this, on the day after the acquittal, Hortensius came into Curio's theatre — I suppose that we might share in his rejoicing! Whereupon you had "Tumult sore, Wild uproar, Thunder bellowing in the clouds, Tempest hissing through the shrouds." This was the more noticed from the fact that Hortensius had reached old age without ever having been hissed, but on this occasion 'got it heartily enough to serve anyone for the whole of his life, and to make him sorry he had won his case. Of politics I have nothing to tell you. The active proceedings of Marcellus have died away, not from lack of energy, as it seems to me, but from policy. As to the consular elections, public opinion is quite at a loss. For myself, I have chanced upon one competitor who is noble and one who acts the noble: for M. Octavius, son of Gnaeus, and C. Hirrus are standing with me. I tell you this because I know that it was on account of Hirrus that you were anxiously waiting for news of my election. However, as soon as you learn of my having been returned, I beg you to be taking measures as to the panthers. I recommend Sittius's bond to your attention. I gave the first batch of notes on the events in the city to L. Castrinius Pietus, the second to the bearer of this letter.

§ Fam.8.3  CXCVI (Fam. VIII, 3) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (ON HIS WAY TO CILICIA) ROME, JUNE: Is it so? Have I won? And do I send you frequent letters, which, as you were leaving, you said I should never take the trouble to do for you? It is even so, that is to say, if the letters I send reach you. And, indeed, I am all the more energetic about this because, being at leisure, I have nowhere to spend my little holiday with any pleasure. When you were at Rome I had an unfailing and most delightful resource for an idle day — to spend the holiday with you. I miss this exceedingly, so that not only do I feel myself to be all alone, but now you are gone a desert seems to have been created at Rome; and I who in my carelessness omitted paying you a visit on many days, when you were here, am now daily tortured to think that I have not got you to run to. But, above all, my rival Hirrus takes care that I should look for you day and night. You can imagine how vexed that rival of yours for the augurship is, and how he tries to conceal the fact that I am a surer candidate than himself. That you should receive the news about him which you wish at the earliest possible moment, I desire, on my honour, more for your sake than my own. For as to myself, if I am elected, I shall perhaps be so with a colleague richer than myself: but even this is so delightful, that, if it really does happen to me, I can never all my life long lack something to smile at. Is it really worth while? Yes! by Hercules. M. Octavius is unable to do much to soften the hostile feelings — and they are many — which spoil Hirrus's chances. As to the services of your freedman Philotimus and the property of Milo, I have taken care that Philotimus should satisfy Milo in his absence, as well as his family, by the most absolutely straightforward conduct, and that your character should not suffer as far as his good faith and activity are concerned. What I now have to ask of you is that, if (as I hope) you get any leisure, you would compose some treatise dedicated to me, to show me that you care for me. "How did that come into your head," say you, "a modest man like you?" I desire that out of your numerous writings there should be something extant handing down to posterity also the record of our friendship. "What sort of thing do you want?" I suppose you will ask. You, who are acquainted with every school of thought, will hit upon the suitable thing sooner than I. Only let it be of a kind that has some appropriateness to me, and let it contain practical instruction, that it may be widely used.

§ Fam.13.1  CXCVIII (Fam. XIII, 1) TO GAIUS MEMMIUS (IN EXILE AT MITYLENE) ATHENS, JULY: THOUGH I had not quite made up my mind whether the prospect of seeing you at Athens was painful or pleasant-because your undeserved calamity would have caused me sorrow, yet the philosophic spirit with which you bear it delight — nevertheless, I should have preferred to have seen you. For I do not feel the pain much less when you are out of sight, while such pleasure as is possible would at any rate have been greater had I seen you. Therefore I shall not hesitate to endeavour to see you whenever I shall be conveniently able to do so. Meanwhile, such business as can be put before you by letter, and, as I think, can be brought to a conclusion, I will put before you now at once I will preface my request by asking you not to do anything for my sake against your own inclination; but if the matter is one which is important to me, and in no way of much importance to yourself, still only grant it in case of having first made up your mind to do so cheerfully. I am in thorough sympathy with Patron the Epicurean, except that I differ from him widely in philosophy. But not only at the very beginning in Rome, when he was paying attention to you as well as all your friends, did he also cultivate my acquaintance with special care, but recently also, after having gained all that he wanted in the way of personal profit and reward, he has continued to regard me as almost the first of his supporters and friends. Besides this, he was introduced and recommended to me by Phaedrus, who, when I was a boy and before I knew Philo, was highly valued by me as a philosopher, and afterwards as, at any rate, a good, agreeable, and kindly man. This Patron, therefore, having written to me at Rome, begging me to reconcile you to him, and to ask you to grant him some ruined house or other once belonging to Epicurus, I did not write to you on the subject, because I did not want any plan of building which you might have to be hampered by a recommendation of mine. On my arrival at Athens, however, having been asked by the same person to write to you on the subject, I have granted his request, because all your friends agreed in saying that you had given up that building idea. If this is so, and if it is now of no importance to you, I would ask you, if some little offence has been caused you by the wrong-headedness of certain persons — and I know the class of men — to take a lenient view of the matter, either from your own great natural kindness or, if you like, out of compliment to me. For my part, if you ask me what I think about it myself, I neither see why he is so anxious for it, nor why you make difficulties; I only feel that it is much less natural for you to trouble yourself without reason, than for him to do so. However, I am sure that Patron's line of argument and the merits of his case are known to you. He says that he has to maintain his own honour and duty, the sanctity of a will, the prestige of Epicurus, the solemn injunction of Phaedrus, the home, the dwelling-place, the footprints of famous men. We may ridicule the man's entire life and the system which he follows in philosophy, if we take upon ourselves to find fault with what he is now contending for. But, by Hercules, since I am not very unfriendly to him or to others who find pleasure in such things, I think we must be indulgent to him for being so very keen about it. For even if he is wrong in this, it is a fault of the head, not the heart. But to come to the point — for I must mention this sooner or later — I love Pomponius Atticus as a second brother. Nothing can be dearer or more delightful than he is to me. Atticus, then-not that he is of their sect (for he is cultivated to the highest degree in all liberal learning ), but he is very fond of Patron, and was much attached to Phaedrus — presses this upon me as he has never done anything else, though he is the very reverse of self-seeking, the last person in the world to be troublesome in making requests; and he feels no doubt of my being able to obtain this favour from you on the slightest hint, even if you still had the intention of building. In the present circumstances, however, if he hears that you have laid aside your plan of building and that yet I have not obtained this favour from you, he will think, not, indeed, that you have been ungenerous towards me, but that I have been careless in what concerned himself. Wherefore I beg you to write word to your agents that the decree of the Areopagites, which they call a "minute," may be canceled with your free consent. But I return to what I said at first. Before making up your mind to do this, I would have you be sure that you do it for my sake with a willing heart. At any rate have no doubt of this: if you do what I ask, I shall take it as a very great favour. Farewell.

§ Fam.2.8  CC (Fam. II, 8) TO M. CAELIUS RUFUS (AT ROME) ATHENS, 6 JULY: What! Do you suppose that I meant you to send me an account of gladiatorial matches, of postponements of trials, of robberies by Chrestus, and such things as, when I am at Rome, nobody ventures to retail to me? See what a high opinion I have of you — and not, indeed, undeservedly, for I have never yet known anyone with keener political instincts — I don't care for your writing to me even the daily occurrences in the most important affairs of the state, unless there is something specially affecting myself. Other people will write about them; many will convey news of them: common report itself will bring many of them to my ears. Therefore it is not things past or present that I expect from you, but things to come — for you are a man who sees far in front of you — so that, having got a view of the ground plan of the Republic from your pen, I may satisfy myself as to what the future building is to be. As yet, however, I have no fault to find with you; for it is impossible for you to see farther than any one of us, and especially myself, who have spent several days with Pompey in conversation exclusively political, which neither can nor ought to be committed to writing. Only take this as certain, that Pompey is an admirable citizen, and prepared in courage and wisdom alike to meet every contingency that needs to be provided against in the political situation. Wherefore devote yourself to him: he will receive you, believe me, with open arms. For he takes the same view, as we ever do, as to who are good and bad citizens. After spending exactly ten days in Athens, and having seen a great deal of our friend Caninius Gallus, I am starting on my journey today, the 6th of July, the day on which I send you this letter. All interests of mine I desire to have the benefit of your greatest attention, but nothing more so than that the time of my provincial government should not be extended. That is all in all to me. When, how, and by whose means this is to be worked, you will settle best for yourself.

§ Fam.3.5  CCIV (Fam. III, 5) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (IN CILICIA) TRALLES, 28 JULY: I ARRIVED at Tralles on the 27th of July. There I 'found L. Lucilius waiting for me with your letter and message; than whom you could have sent no man either more friendly to me, or, as I think, better suited to give the information I wanted, or endowed with more practical wisdom himself. For myself, I read your letter with great pleasure, and also listened carefully to Lucilius. For two reasons all mention of past services is now superfluous: first, because you think so — for you say in your letter that you thought what I wrote to you about our mutual services, though gratifying to you, was unnecessary, considering how far back they go — and, secondly, because our friendship is well established and our fidelity tried: I will therefore pass over that subject, though I will yet express the thanks which I owe you. For I have observed and learnt from your letter that in all your proceedings you kept in view the object of consulting for my interests, and of settling beforehand and, so to speak, prearranging everything which would make my administration easier and less complicated. When I tell you that this kindness on your part excites the liveliest gratitude in me, it naturally follows that I wish you to think that it will ever be and is now an object dear to me, that first of all you and your friends, and then all the rest of the world also, should know that I am your very warm friend. If there are any people who are not clear on that point as yet, I think it is rather that they don't wish us to entertain such feelings than that they are-ignorant of our doing so. But I am sure they will not be ignorant of it: for the persons taking part in our drama will not be obscure, nor its action unimportant. But I wish all this to be shown in performance rather than in anything said or written. You say that the route I have planned out makes you somewhat doubtful whether you are likely to see me in the province. The facts are these. When talking to your freedman Phania at Brundisium, I remarked in the course of conversation that I should be glad to go to that part of the province first, which I thought would best meet your wishes. Whereupon he informed me that, as it was your wish to leave by sea, it would be very convenient to you if I approached the maritime portion of the province on board ship. I said I would do so: and so I should have done, had not our friend L. Clodius told me at Corcyra that I must by no means do so: that you would be at Laodicea to meet me when I arrived. That was a much shorter and more convenient route for me, especially as I thought that it was your preference. Your plans were afterwards changed. In these circumstances it will be easiest for you to arrange what is to be done: I will lay before you what my plan is. On the 31st of July I expect to be at Laodicea: I shall remain there for a very few days to get in some money due to me on an exchequer bill of exchange. I shall then direct my course to the army, so as to be at Iconium, as I think, about the 13th of August. But if I am now making any mistake in thus writing — for I am at some distance both from my sphere of duty and the localities — as soon as I have begun my farther progress, I will employ the swiftest messengers, and write as often as I possibly can, to put before you the whole scheme of my days and routes. I have neither the courage nor the right to lay any burden upon you. Yet, as far as it may be so without inconvenience to you, it is really of great importance to both of us that I should see you before you leave. If any accident, however, makes this impossible, you may yet feel certain of all the services that I can render you, exactly as if I had seen you. As to my own affairs, I shall not give you any written commissions until I have given up all hope of a personal interview. You tell me that you asked Scaevola to take charge of the province in your absence until my arrival. I saw him at Ephesus, and he spent the three days of my stay at Ephesus with me in a very cordial manner; but I did not hear a word from him indicating any commission given him by you. I only wish he could have obeyed your wishes: for I don't think he was unwilling to do so.

§ Fam.8.4  CCV (Fam. VIII, 4) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN CILICIA) ROME, 1 AUGUST: I envy you: such a budget of startling news is conveyed every day to you over there! First, the acquittal of Messalla, then his condemnation: the election of C. Marcellus to the consulship: M. Calidius, after losing his election, impeached by the two Gallii: P. Dolabella made one of the quindecimviri. There is only one thing I don't envy you for — that you have lost a most interesting spectacle, and did not see the expression on the face of Lentulus Crus when he lost. But what a come down for him! He had been so confident, had made so sure of it! Dolabella himself had been so doubtful! And, by Hercules, if our friends the equites had not been too sharp-eyed, he would have won almost by the retirement of his opponent. The next item I don't think will surprise you, that Servaeus, after becoming tribune-designate, has been condemned. C. Curio is candidate for the vacancy thus made by him. It is remarkable how much alarm he inspires in many people, who don't know him and his easy-going character; but, as I hope and desire, and to judge from his present attitude, he will prefer to side with the loyalist party and the senate. In his present frame of mind he is bubbling over with this intention. The root and origin of this feeling is that Caesar, who generally spares no expense in attaching to himself the friendship of the lowest characters, has treated him with very marked neglect. And in this there does seem to me to be a touch of humour — which has been noticed also to a great extent by the rest — that Curio, who never acts on any fixed plan, should be thought to be following a deliberate policy and a deep design in evading the counsels of those who had exerted themselves to oppose his election to the tribuneship — I mean the Laelii and Antonii and powerful men of that stamp. There has been a somewhat longer interval than usual between this and my last letter, because the successive postponements of the elections kept me more than usually busy, and forced me to wait day after day for their result, that I might give you the information when all was over. I have waited to the 1st of August. There have been some hitches in the praetorian elections. Moreover, what will be the result of my own election I do not know: that of the plebeian Aediles' election indeed has, as far as Hirrus is concerned, amounted to a strong expression of opinion in my favour. For that foolish proposition of his (which we laughed at of old), and the promulgation of a law for the appointment of a dictator, brought M. Caelius Vinicianus suddenly to the ground, and caused him to be loudly hooted when down. This was followed by a general demand that, after that, Hirrus should not be elected curule aedile. I hope that you will speedily hear about me the news you have hoped for, and about him what you have scarcely ventured to hope. As to politics, I had by this time ceased to hope for any new development; but at a meeting of the senate in the temple of Apollo on the 22nd of July, upon a motion being brought before it in reference to the pay of Pompey's soldiers, mention was made of the legion with which Pompey had furnished C. Caesar — in what division was it reckoned, for what purpose was it required? Pompey having answered that "it was in Gaul," he was compelled to say that "he would withdraw the legion." He didn't say this at once, but only on the subject being brought forward and under a fire of invective from his detractors. He was then asked about the appointment of a successor to C. Caesar; and on this point a resolution was passed that "Cn. Pompeius should return to the city as soon as possible, in order that the question of the succession to the provinces might be debated while he was in the house." For Pompey was on the point of starting for Ariminum to join the army; and in fact did go at once. I think that business will come on on the 13th of August. Some conclusion will be come to for certain, or a scandalous exercise of the veto will hinder it. For in the course of the debate Pompey let fall the expression, "Everybody ought to be obedient to the senate." For my part, however, there is nothing I look forward to so much as to hearing Paullus delivering his vote first as consul-elect. I remind you often about Sittius's bond, for I am anxious that you should understand that it is of great importance to me: so also about the panthers, that you should send for some natives of Cibyra, and see that they are shipped to me. Besides this, we have been told, and it is now regarded as certain, that the king of Egypt is dead. Take care to write to me what policy you recommend to me, what the condition of that kingdom is, and who has charge of it. 1 August.

§ Fam.8.5  CCIX (Fam. VIII, 5) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN CILICIA) ROME (AUGUST) How far you are anxious about the peaceful state of your province and the neighbouring regions I don't know: for myself, I am in great suspense. For if we could only arrange matters in such a fashion, that the war should just be of a magnitude to correspond with your forces, and that we should gain just enough success for a triumph, without encountering the serious contest awaiting you, then nothing could be so much to be wished. As it is, if the Parthian stirs at all, I know that the struggle will not be a slight one. Moreover, your army is scarcely large enough to hold a single pass. No one, however, takes that into account; but everything is expected from a man at the head of a public department, as though he had been refused nothing which was required to put him in the most absolute state of preparation. Added to this, I don't see any chance of a successor being named for you, owing to the controversy about the Gauls. Although on this point I think you have settled in your own mind what to do, nevertheless, to enable you to settle it the earlier, I thought, as I now foresee that contingency, that I ought to keep you informed. For you know the way things commonly go: a settlement of the Gauls will be passed; some one' will be found to veto it; then up will get some one else to veto the other provinces, unless the senate is allowed to pass a vote about them all without interference. This is the sort of game that will be kept up briskly and long, and so long that more than two years will be wasted in these intrigues. If I had any news in politics to tell you, I would have followed my usual habit of carefully retailing in my letter not only what had happened, but also what I expected to be the result of it. In point of fact, everything seems to have stuck, so to speak, in the ditch. Marcellus is trying to push that same motion about the provinces, but has not as yet succeeded in getting a quorum. If, after this year is over, Curio as tribune, and the same motion about the provinces come upon the stage, you cannot fail to see how easy it will be to stop all business, and how much Caesar, and those who care nothing for the Republic when their own interests are involved, hope that it may be so.

§ Fam.8.9  CCX (Fam. VIII, 9) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN CILICIA) ROME, 2 SEPTEMBER: "Is that the way you have treated Hirrus?" quoth you. Nay, if you only knew how easy it was, what an absence of even the shadow of a struggle, you would be ashamed that he ever ventured to come forward as a rival candidate with you. However, after his defeat, he keeps a smiling face, plays the honest citizen, and delivers his votes against Caesar; blames the delay; attacks Curio, too, with considerable violence has quite changed his habits since his defeat. Besides, he who has hitherto never shown his face in the forum, and has had little to do with the law courts, now pleads cases of slaves claiming freedom, though seldom after midday. I told you in one of my letters that the business of the provinces was to be settled on the 13th of August: well, the trial of Marcellus, consul-designate, interfered with that. The matter was postponed till the 1st of September. They haven't even been able to make a house. I send this letter on the 2nd of September, up to which date nothing has been decided any more than before. As far as I can see this question will be transferred to next year unsettled, and, as well as I can guess, you will have to leave some one behind you to take charge of the province. For the appointment of a successor is not freed from difficulties, now that it is sought to put the Gauls, the assignment of which is vetoed, under the same category as the rest of the provinces. I have no doubt of this being the case: and it has made me the more determined to write to you, that you might prepare yourself for this eventuality. In nearly every letter I have mentioned the subject of the panthers to you. It will be a disgrace to you that Patiscus has sent ten panthers to Curio, and that you should not send many times more. And these very beasts, as well as ten more from Africa, Curio has presented to me, lest you should think that he does not know how to make any presents except landed estates. If you will only not forget, and send for some men of Cibyra, and also transmit a letter to Pamphylia — for it is there that they are said to be mostly captured — you will effect what you choose. I am all the more earnest about this now, because I think I shall have to furnish the exhibition entirely apart from my colleague. Pray lay this injunction upon yourself. It is your way to take much trouble willingly, as it is mine for the most part to take none. In this business you have nothing to do but speak — that is, to give an order and a commission. For as soon as the beasts have been captured, you have men to feed and transport them in those whom I have sent over on the affair of Sittius's bond. I think also that, if you give me any hope in your letters, I shall send some more men across. I recommend to you M. Feridius, a Roman knight, a son of a friend of mine, a good and active young man, who is about to arrive in your province on business of his own, and I beg you to count him among the number of your friends. He wishes that certain lands, from which their townships draw revenue, should by your favour (which you can easily and honourably grant) be relieved from this burden: you will have obliged men who are both grateful and honest. I would not have you think that Favonius owed his defeat to the men of the pavement; all the most respectable men abstained from voting for him. Your friend Pompey plainly objects to Caesar keeping a province with an army, and being at the same time consul. However, the motion he himself made in the senate was that no decree ought to be passed at this time. Scipio's was, that the question of Gallic provinces should be brought before the house on 1st March, and no other question combined with it. This motion made Cornelius Balbus pull a long face, and I know that he remonstrated with Scipio. Calidius, in conducting his defence, was very eloquent; in bringing his accusation, rather ineffective.

§ Fam.15.3  CCXI (Fam. XV, 3) TO M. PORCIUS CATO (AT ROME) ICONIUM, 28 AUGUST: Ambassadors sent to me by Antiochus of Commagene having arrived at the camp at Iconium on the 28th of August, and having announced to me that the son of the king of the Parthians, whose wife was the sister of the king of the Armenians, had arrived on the Euphrates with a very large force of Parthians, and a great host of other nations besides, and had actually begun the passage of the Euphrates, and that it was reported that the Armenian king was about to make a raid upon Cappadocia — I thought that, considering our close friendship, I ought to write and tell you this news. I have sent no public despatch for two reasons: first, because the ambassadors said that the Commagenian himself had at once sent messengers and a despatch to the senate; and, secondly, because I believed that M. Bibulus, proconsul of Syria, who started thither by sea from Ephesus about the 13th of August, seeing that he had had the wind in his favour, had by this time arrived in his own province, and I thought that the senate was sure to get more definite information on all points in a despatch from him. For myself, considering the circumstances and the gravity of the war, my chief anxiety is to retain by my own leniency and purity, and the loyalty of our allies, what I can scarcely hope to retain by the amount of my forces and material resources. I would beg you, on your part, to continue your habitual affection for me and the defence of me in my absence.

§ Fam.3.6  CCXII (Fam. III, 6) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT TARSUS) WITH THE ARMY IN CAPPADOCIA (29 AUGUST) When I compare my course of action with yours, though in maintaining our friendship I do not allow myself greater credit than I do you, yet I am more satisfied with my conduct than with yours. For at Brundisium I asked Phania — and I imagined that I saw clearly his fidelity to you and knew what a high place he had in your confidence — to tell me to what part of the province he thought you would like me to come in taking over the succession. Having been answered by him that I could not please you more than by going by sea to Sida, although the arrival there was not very dignified and much less convenient for me on many accounts, I yet said that I would do so. Again, having met L. Clodius in Corcyra — a man so closely attached to you, that in talking to him I seemed to be talking to you — I told him that I meant to arrange for my first arrival to be at the point at which Phania had requested that it should be. Thereupon, after thanking me, he begged me very strongly to go straight to Laodicea: that you wished to be on the very frontier of the province, in order to quit it at the first moment: nay, that, had I not been a successor whom you were anxious to see, you would most likely have quitted before you were relieved. And this last agreed with the letter which I had received in Rome, from which I thought that I perceived how much in a hurry you were to depart. I answered Clodius that I would do so, and with much greater pleasure than if I had had to do what I had promised Phania. Accordingly, I changed my plan and at once sent a letter in my own writing to you; and this, I learnt from your letter, reached you in very good time. With my conduct I am, for my part, quite satisfied; for nothing could be more cordial. Now, on the other hand, consider your own. Not only were you not at the place where you might have seen me earliest, but you had gone such a distance as made it impossible for me to overtake you even, within the thirty days fixed by, I think, the Cornelian law. Such a course of action on your part must appear to those who are ignorant of our feelings to each other to indicate one who, to put it at the mildest, is a stranger and desirous of avoiding a meeting, while mine must seem that of the most closely united and affectionate of friends. And, after all, before reaching my province, I received a letter from you, in which, though you informed me that you were starting for Tarsus, you yet held out no uncertain hope of my meeting you. Meanwhile, certain persons, I am ready to believe out of spite — for that is a vice widely spread and to be found in many — yet who had managed to get hold of some plausible grounds for their gossip, being unacquainted with the constancy of my feelings, tried to alienate my affection from you, by saying that you were holding an assize at Tarsus, were issuing many enactments, deciding actions, delivering judgments, though you might have guessed that your successor had by this time taken over your province — things (they remarked) not usually done even by those who expect to be relieved shortly. I was not moved by the talk of such persons; nay, more, I assure you, that if you performed any official act, I was prepared to consider myself relieved from trouble, and to rejoice that from being a government of a year, which I regarded as too long, it had been reduced nearly to one of eleven months, if in my absence the labour of one month were subtracted. One thing, however, to speak candidly, does disturb me — that, considering the weakness of my military force, the three cohorts which are at their fullest strength should be absent, and that I should not know where they are. But what causes me most annoyance of all is that I do not know where I am likely to see you, and have been the slower to write to you, because I was expecting you in person. from day today; and meanwhile I did not receive so much as a letter to tell me what you were doing or where I was to see you. Accordingly, I have sent you the commander of my reserve-men, Decimus Antonius, a gallant officer and possessed of my fullest confidence, to take over the cohorts, if you think well, in order that, before the suitable season of the year is gone, I may be able to accomplish something practical. It was in that department that I had hoped, both from our friendship and your letter, to have the advantage of your advice, of which I do not even now despair. But the truth is that, unless you write to me, I cannot even guess when or where I am to see you. For my part, I will take care that friends and enemies alike understand that I am most warmly attached to you: of your feelings towards me you do appear to have given the ill-disposed some grounds for 'thinking differently: if you will put that straight I shall be much obliged to you. That you may also be able to calculate at what place you may meet me without a breach of the Cornelian law, note this — I entered the province on the last day of July: I am on my way to Cilicia through Cappadocia: I break up the camp from Iconium on this last day of August. With these facts before you, if you think by reckoning days and routes you may meet me, please settle at what place that may be most conveniently done, and on what day.

§ Fam.15.7  CCXIII (Fam. XV, 7) TO GAIUS CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (CONSUL DESIGNATE) (LYCAONIA, SEPTEMBER) I was exceedingly rejoiced to hear of your election as consul, and pray that the gods may bless your office to you, and that it may be administered by you in a manner worthy of your own and your father's position. For I have always loved and regarded you, as well as having had reason to know your exceeding affection for myself in all the course of my chequered fortunes. Moreover, having by numerous acts of kindness from your father been both defended in times of adversity and honoured in times of prosperity, I not only am, but am bound to be, devoted to your family, especially as from your most revered and excellent mother I have been fully aware of having received greater services in support of my safety and position than were to be expected from a lady. Wherefore I beg you with more than common earnestness to continue to regard and support me in my absence.

§ Fam.15.8  CCXIV (Fam. XV, 8) TO GAIUS CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (AUGUR) (LYCAONIA, SEPTEMBER) That your son Marcellus has been elected consul, and that you have experienced the joy which you above all things desired, give me extraordinary pleasure, and that both for his own sake, and because in my opinion you richly deserve every success of the best sort: for I have had reason to know your unexampled goodness to me both in weal and woe; in fact, I have experienced the greatest kindness and the most eager support from your whole family, whether it were a question of my civil existence or official advancement. Wherefore I shall be much obliged if you will congratulate for me that most revered and excellent lady, your wife Iunia. From yourself I ask your habitual regard and support in my absence.

§ Fam.15.9  CCXV (Fam. XV, 9) TO M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (CONSUL) (LYCAONIA, SEPTEMBER) I am exceedingly glad that by the election of Gaius Marcellus to the consulate you have reaped the reward of your loyalty to your friends, your patriotic spirit, and your own most brilliant and excellent consulship. I have no doubt about the feelings of those at home: for myself, indeed, distant as I am and sent by your own action to the other end of the earth, I am praising you, by Hercules, up to the skies with the most sincere and well-deserved compliments. For as I have had from boyhood a singular affection for you, while you have ever wished and judged me to be a man of the widest influence, so by this achievement, whether due to yourself or the favourable judgment of the Roman people concerning you, my affection for you has become warmer and stronger, and I feel the greatest delight when I am told by people of the greatest wisdom and men of the highest character, that in word and deed, in tastes and principles, I am like you or you are like me. If you will add one thing to the eminent achievements of your consulship-the securing of some one to succeed me at the earliest possible opportunity, or the prevention of any addition being made to the time which you defined in virtue both of a senatorial decree and of the law — I shall consider that I shall owe you everything. Take care of your health and let me have your regard and support in my absence. The news that has reached me about the Parthians, as I do not think it necessary at present to send an official despatch about them, I have resolved not to communicate to you as my intimate friend, for, as I was addressing a consul, it might be considered that I was writing officially.

§ Fam.15.7  CCXVI (Fam. XV, 7) TO L. AEMILIUS PAULLUS (CONSUL-DESIGNATE) (LYCAONIA, SEPTEMBER) THOUGH I never doubted that the Roman people, considering your eminent services to the Republic and the splendid position of your family, would enthusiastically elect you consul by a unanimous vote, yet I had a feeling of intense exultation when the news reached me; and I pray the gods to render your official career fortunate, and that your office may be administered by you in a manner worthy of your own and your ancestors' position. And would that it had been in my power to have been at home to see that most wished — for day, and to have rendered you the service and support which your magnificent services and kindness to me deserved! But since the unexpected and unlooked — for accident of my having to take a province has deprived me of that opportunity, yet, that I may be enabled to see you as consul actually administering the state in a manner worthy of your position, I earnestly beg you to take care to prevent my being treated unfairly, or any additional time being added to my year's term of office. If you do that, you will abundantly crown your former kindnesses to me.

§ Fam.15.2  CCXVIII (Fam. XV, 2) TO THE MAGISTRATES AND SENATE CYBISTRA (SEPTEMBER) M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets the consuls, praetors, tribunes, and senate. If you are well, I am glad. I and the army are well. Having entered the province on the last day of July, not having been able to arrive earlier owing to the difficulty of the journey both by land and sea, I thought the thing most suitable to my office, and most conducive to the public welfare, was to provide everything affecting the army and its active service. These arrangements having been made by me with more care and energy than means or sufficient supplies, and messages and letters reaching me nearly every day concerning an invasion of the province of Syria by the Parthians, I thought that I ought to direct my march through Lycaonia, the Isaurians, and Cappadocia. For there was very strong reason to conjecture that, should the Parthians endeavour to quit Syria and invade my province, they would march through Cappadocia, as being most completely open to them. Accordingly, I marched with the army through that part of Cappadocia which borders on Cilicia, and pitched my camp at Cybistra, which is a town at the foot of Mount Taurus, in order that Artavasdes, the Armenian king, whatever his disposition, might know that an army of the Roman people was not far from his frontier; and that I might have in as close contact as possible king Deiotarus, a sovereign who is most loyal and devoted to our Republic, since his advice and material support might be of assistance to the public interests. Having my camp in this place, and having sent the cavalry into Cilicia — in order that my arrival, having been notified to the communities in that region, might confirm the loyal dispositions of all, and at the same time that I might get early information of what was going on in Syria — I thought I ought to give the three days of my stay in that camp to a high and necessary duty. For, seeing that a formal resolution of yours had imposed upon me the duty of protecting king Ariobarzanes (surnamed Eusebes and Philorhomaeus), of defending the personal safety of that sovereign and the integrity of his dominions, and of being the guardian of king and kingdom alike: and seeing that you had appended a declaration that the safety of that sovereign was a matter of great concern to the people and senate — a decree such as had never been passed by our house concerning any king before — I thought myself bound to report the expression of your opinion to the king, and to promise him my protection and a faithful and energetic support, in order that, as his personal safety and the integrity of his dominions had been commended to my care, he might communicate to me anything he wished to be done. Having, in the presence of my council, communicated these things to the king, he began his reply by the proper expression of his warmest thanks to you: and then went on to thank me also, saying that he looked upon it as a very great and honourable distinction that his personal safety should be a matter of concern to the senate and people of Rome, and that I should exhibit such energy as to put beyond doubt my own good faith and the weight of your recommendation. And, indeed, at this first interview, he also assured me of what I was very delighted to hear, that he neither knew nor had a suspicion of any plots either against his own life or against his kingdom. After I had congratulated him and said that I rejoiced to hear it, and yet had advised him as a young man to remember the disaster of his father's death, to protect himself with vigilance, and, in accordance with the injunction of the senate, to take measures for his safety, he then left me and returned to the town of Cybistra. However, next day he came to visit me in the camp, accompanied by his brother Ariarathes and some elder men, who had been his father's friends. In a state of agitation and with tears in his eyes — his brother and friends showing the same signs of distress — he began appealing to my good faith and the charge imposed on me by you. On my asking with surprise what had occurred, he said that "information of an undoubted conspiracy had been communicated to him, which had been withheld from him before my arrival, because those who might have denounced it to him had kept silence through fear, but that now, relying upon my protection several persons had boldly informed him of what they knew: that among these his most devoted brother had told him" (a story which the latter repeated in my hearing) "that he had been solicited to aim at becoming king: that so long as his brother was alive he could not accept that suggestion; but that from fear of the danger he had never revealed the circumstance." After this speech I advised the king that he should take every precaution to preserve his life; and I exhorted the friends, who had enjoyed the confidence of his father and grandfather, to guard the life of their sovereign with all care and vigilance, warned by his father's most lamentable murder. Upon the king asking me for some cavalry and cohorts from my army, though I was fully aware that in view of your senatorial decree I was not only authorized, but even bound to comply, yet, since the public interests demanded, owing to the news daily arriving from Syria, that I should lead the army as soon as possible to the frontiers of Cilicia — and since the king, now that the plot had been denounced, seemed not to be in need of an army of the Roman people, but to be capable of defending himself by his own resources, I urged him to learn his first lesson in the art of ruling by taking measures to preserve his life: that upon those by whom he had discovered that a plot was being laid against him he should exercise his sovereign rights: punish those who must be punished, relieve the rest from fear: use the protection of my army rather to inspire fear in the guilty than to keep up a state of civil war: the result would be no doubt that all, having been made acquainted with the decree of the senate, would understand that in accordance with your resolution I should protect the king if necessary. Having thus encouraged him, I broke up my camp there, and began my march into Cilicia, leaving behind me on my departure from Cappadocia an impression that by your policy my arrival, owing to a strange and almost providential accident, had relieved from an actual plot a sovereign to whom you had given unsolicited that title in most complimentary terms, whom you had entrusted to my honour, and whose safety you had declared in a decree to be a matter of great concern to you. I thought it was not improper that my despatch should inform you of this circumstance, in order that you might learn from what almost happened that you had long before taken the precautions necessary to prevent it: and I have been all the more ready to give you the information, because in king Ariobarzanes I think I have detected such signs of virtue and ability, as well as of good faith and loyalty to you, that you appear to have had good reason for all the care and energy you have devoted to his protection.

§ Fam.15.1  CCXX (Fam. XV, 1) TO THE MAGISTRATES AND SENATE CILICIA, 22 SEPTEMBER: M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, proconsul, greets the consuls, praetors, tribunes, and senate. If you are well, I am glad. I and the army are well. Although I had undoubted assurance that the Parthians had crossed the Euphrates with nearly all their forces, yet, believing that more definite information could be sent you on these points by the proconsul M. Bibulus, I concluded that it was not incumbent on me to mention in a public despatch reports reaching me concerning the province of another. Having since then, however, received information on the most unquestionable authority-from legates, messengers, and despatches — whether I considered the importance of the matter itself, or the fact of not having yet heard of Bibulus's arrival in Syria, or that the conduct of this war was almost as much my business as that of Bibulus, I came to the conclusion that it was my duty to write you word of what had reached my ears. The legates of king Antiochus of Commagene were the first to inform me that large bodies of Parthians had begun to cross the Euphrates. On the receipt of this report, as there were certain persons who thought that full credit could not be given to that sovereign, I made up my mind that I must wait for more trustworthy information. On the 18th of September, whilst marching into Cilicia at the head of my army, on the frontier between Lycaonia and Cappadocia, a despatch was handed to me from Tarcondimotus, who is considered to be the most faithful ally and the most devoted friend of the Roman people beyond Mount Taurus, announcing that Pacorus, son of Orodes, the king of the Parthians, had crossed the Euphrates with a very large body of Parthian cavalry, and had pitched his camp at Tyba, and that consequently a very serious commotion had been caused in the province of Syria. On the same day a despatch on the same subject reached me from Iamblichus, phylarch of the Arabians, who is generally considered to be well-disposed and friendly to our Republic. Though I was fully aware that, on receipt of this information, our allies were unsettled in their feelings and wavering from the expectation of political change, I yet hoped that those whom I had already visited, and who had seen the mildness and purity of my administration, had been made more devoted to the Roman people, and that Cilicia, too, would become more certainly loyal when it had once felt the advantage of my equitable rule. Acting at once from this motive, and also with a view to put down those of the Cilicians who are in arms, and to show the enemy in Syria that the army of the Roman people, so far from retiring on receipt of that news, was actually approaching nearer, I determined to lead it right up to Mount Taurus. But if my authority has any weight with you — especially in matters which you only know by report, but which are all but passing under my eyes — I strongly urge and advise you to take measures for the defence of these provinces: it is over-late already, but better late than never. For myself, you are well aware how slenderly supplied and how imperfectly furnished with troops, in view of the expected gravity of this war, you have despatched me. And it was not from the blindness of vanity, but from a modest scruple as to refusing, that I did not decline this business. For I have never considered any danger so formidable, as to make me wish to avoid it in preference to obeying your will. But at this moment the matter is of such a nature, that unless you promptly despatch into these provinces an army on the same scale as you are wont to employ for the most important war, there is the most imminent danger of our having to give up all those provinces, on which the revenues of the Roman people depend. Again, there is this reason for your not resting any hopes on a levy in the province — that men are not numerous, and that such as there are fly in every direction at the first alarm. Again, what this class of soldier is worth in his opinion has been shown by that gallant officer, M. Bibulus: for, though you had granted him leave to hold a levy in Asia, he has declined to do so. For auxiliaries raised from the allies, owing to the harshness and injustice of our rule, are either so weak that they can do us little service, or so disaffected to us that it seems improper to expect anything from them or trust anything to them. Both the loyalty and the forces, whatever their amount, of king Deiotarus I reckon as being at our service. Cappadocia has nothing to give. Other kings and despots are not to be relied upon either in regard to their resources or their loyalty. For myself, in spite of this short supply of soldiers, I shall certainly show no lack of courage, nor, I hope, of prudence either. What will happen is uncertain. I pray that I may be able to secure my safety! I will certainly secure my honour.

§ Fam.3.8  CCXXI (Fam. III, 8) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME) CILICIA, 8 OCTOBER: ALTHOUGH, as far as I have been able to gather from your letter, I see that you won't read this till you are at the gates of Rome, when the extremely reckless gossip of provincials will have become quite stale, yet, as you have written to me at such length about what unprincipled men are saying, I thought I ought to be careful to give your letter a brief answer. Two clauses of your epistle, however, must in a manner be passed over in silence: for they contain nothing that is definite or precise, beyond saying that alike by my looks and my silence I had shown that I was no friend to you: and that this had been made unmistakable both on my judicial seat, when business was going on, and at certain social parties. I can well understand that there is nothing in all this; yet, though there is nothing in it, I fail to understand even what the allegation is. I know thus much, indeed — that many observations of a very marked character, made by me both from the high official seat and on the level of private intercourse, which were exceedingly complimentary to you, and indicated an anxious desire to acknowledge the close ties between us, might have with strict truth been reported to you. For as to the legates, what could I have done in better taste or with greater regard to equity, than to diminish the expenses of states that were in great financial distress, and yet at the same time to detract nothing from your honour, especially as it was in answer to the petition of the states themselves? For I had not been aware of the scale on which deputations were being sent on your account. When I was at Apamea, the head men of many states informed me that large sums were being voted for legates, though the states were insolvent At this, many thoughts occurred to me at once. First, I did not think that you — a man of wisdom, and, to use the jargon of the day, a man of "culture " — took any pleasure in deputations of that sort: and I believe I argued to that effect at some length in court at Synnada. In the first place (I said) Appius Claudius was commended to the senate and people of Rome, not by the evidence of the people of Midaeium (for it was in that state that the subject was started), but in the natural course of things: and, in the second place, I had seen many cases in which deputations had come to Rome to commend certain persons, but I never remembered any instance of a hearing being granted them, to deliver their panegyric at any particular time or place I was pleased (I said) with their display of feeling in being grateful to you for your services; but their whole idea appeared to me quite superfluous. If, however, they wished by that measure to show their zeal, I should commend any man who did it at his own expense; should allow of it if the expense to the state did not exceed the law; should refuse permission if it were unlimited. Well, what fault can be found with that? The only possible one is what you go on to say — that certain persons considered my edict to have been expressly framed with a view to hinder these deputations of yours. Really, I think it is not so much those who argue thus who do me a wrong, as he who opens his ears to such a proposition. I drew up my edict at Rome: I never added a word to it except a clause which the publicani in their interview with me at Samos, asked me to transfer word for word from your edict to my own. The clause referring to the diminishing the expenses of the states was very carefully worded; and in that clause there are some new provisions advantageous to the states, with which I am greatly pleased: but this clause, which has given birth to the suspicion of my elaborating something meant to be offensive to you, is taken from former edicts. For I was not so foolish as to hold that men were being deputed on their own private affairs, who were being sent, in the first place, in your interests while you were still in possession of imperium; and, in the second place, were being sent to deliver a vote of thanks, not in any private assembly, but in the council chamber of the whole world, the senate. Nor when I ordered that no one was to go without my leave, did I exclude those from doing so who might be unable to follow me to the camp and across the Taurus. That, in fact, is the most ridiculous thing in your letter: for what need was there for their following me to the camp or crossing the Taurus, when I arranged my journey from Laodicea as far as Iconium, with the express object of the magistrates and legates of all the dioceses north of Taurus, and of all the states there, meeting me? Unless you suppose that no deputations were arranged till I had crossed the Taurus! That is certainly not so. For when I was at Laodicea, at Apamea, at Synnada, at Philomelium, at Iconium, in all of which towns I made some stay, there were ready waiting for me all the deputations of that kind. And yet I would have you know this, that I made no decree about diminishing or wholly remitting the expense of embassies, except such as the head men of the states asked for — that quite unnecessary expenses should not be added to the selling of the contract for the tribute, and the very galling exaction (as you know) of the poll-tax and door-tax. Now, when at the instigation not only of justice but of pity, I undertook to relieve from their distress the states that had been ruined, and ruined, too, chiefly through their own magistrates, I could not be indifferent to that source of unnecessary expense. For your part, if observations of that nature were reported to you in regard to me, you ought not to have believed them. But if you like this way of attributing to others whatever occurs to your own mind, you are introducing a style of conversation between friends which is not very courteous. Whereas if I had ever had any thought of casting a slur on your reputation in the province, I should not have referred to your son-in-law, nor to your freedman at Brundisium, nor to your prefect of engineers at Corcyra, as to where you wished me to come. Wherefore, on the advice of the greatest philosophers, who have written most brilliantly on the conduct of friendship, you may banish all expressions such as "they argued," "I maintained in opposition," "they said so," "I denied it." Do you suppose that I have never been told anything about you? Not even this — that, after having desired me to come to Laodicea, you yourself crossed the Taurus? That on the same days as I was holding assizes at Apamea, Synnada, and Philomelium you were doing so at Tarsus? I will say no more, lest I should seem to be doing exactly what I blame in you. I will only say this, and I feel it: if you feel in your own heart what you say that others are remarking, you are much to blame: but if others say these things to you, you are not entirely without fault in listening to them. My conduct in every particular of our friendship will be found to be consistent and sincere. But if anyone tries to make out that I had some ulterior object in view, could there be a better example of my supposed cunning than that, having always defended you while abroad — and that though I had no idea of ever requiring your defence while abroad myself — I should now give you the best possible excuse for abandoning me in my absence from town? I except from this denial one species of conversation, in which on very many occasions something is said, such as I presume you would prefer not being said — I mean when any abusive remark is made about any of your legates, prefects, or military tribunes. But even in regard to this nothing, by Hercules, has occurred in my hearing of a graver character, or reflecting on more persons, than what Clodius mentioned to me at Corcyra, when under that head he made a very loud complaint that you had been unfortunate in the dishonesty of others. Such observations as these, seeing that they are frequently made, and do not reflect, in my opinion, on your personal honour, I have never provoked, but neither have I exerted myself to repress them. If there is anyone who thinks that no man is ever sincerely reconciled with another, he does not prove our want of sincerity, but betrays his own, and at the same time shows that he thinks no worse of me than he does of you. But if, again, there is anyone who dislikes my administration in the province, and considers himself injured by a certain dissimilarity between my arrangements and yours — the fact being that we have both acted conscientiously, though we took different lines — such a man I do not care to have for a friend. Your liberality, as became a great noble, was on a larger scale in the province; if mine is somewhat more restricted — though your second year, owing to the hardness of the times, somewhat clipped the wings of your generous and bountiful nature — men ought not to be surprised, since I have always been naturally disinclined to be lavish at the expense of others, and am influenced by the same hard times as others are, "That I am sour to them to keep my conscience sweet." Your giving me information about affairs in the city was pleasant to me, both for its own sake, and because you showed your intention of keeping all my commissions in mind. Among them there is one that I beg you to regard as supreme — see that to the business in which I am now engaged there should be no addition made either of responsibility or time; and to ask Hortensius, our fellow augur and friend, if ever he has thought or done anything for my sake, to give up this two-year proposal of his also, than which nothing could be more unfriendly to me. To give you the information you want about my proceedings, I left Tarsus on the 7th of October for Amanus. I write this on the day after that in camp, in the territory of Mopsuhestia. Whatever I do I will write and tell you, nor will I ever send a letter home to my family without adding one directed to be delivered to you. As to your question about the Parthians, I think they were not Parthians at all. The Arabs who were there with a semi-Parthian equipment, are said to have all gone back. People say that there is no enemy in Syria. Pray write to me as often as possible about both your own and my affairs, and on the state of the Republic generally. About the last I am the more anxious, because I gather from your letter that our friend Pompey is about to go to Spain.

§ Fam.8.8  CCXXII (Fam. VIII, 8) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN CILICIA) ROME (OCTOBER) Though I have some political news for you, yet I don't think I have anything to tell you that you will be more glad to hear than this: I have to inform you that C. Sempronius Rufus — Rufus, your pet darling — has been convicted of vexatious prosecution with universal applause. You ask, in what case? Well, he indicted M. Tuccius (who had formerly prosecuted him) after the Ludi Romani for illegal violence under the lex Plotia. His object was this: he saw that, unless some defendant were put on the list for trial whose case could take priority, he would have to stand his own trial this year. Moreover, he had no doubt what would happen to him. This prosecution was a small favour he preferred to do to his accuser more than anyone else! Accordingly, without anyone backing his indictment, he came down into the forum and indicted Tuccius. As soon as I heard of it, I hurried without waiting for a summons to the defendant's bench. I rose, and without saying a word on the merits of the case, I showed up his whole character and career, even bringing in the matter of Vestorius, and telling the story of his having surrendered to you as a favour "whatever Vestorius held contrary to his own legal rights." The following hotly contested case is also at present taking up the attention of the forum. M. Servilius had, as was to be expected from his previous conduct, become utterly bankrupt, and had nothing left which he was not prepared to sell to anybody, and when he became my client had already exposed himself to the most violent scandal. But when Pausanias initiated proceedings against him for "fraudulent possession of the money" (I acting as counsel for the defence), the praetor Laterensis declined to allow the action. Then Q. Pilius, the connexion of our friend Atticus, initiated proceedings against him for extortion. Much talk at once arose about the case, and strong remarks began to be made about a conviction. Moved by this storm of popular feeling, Appius the younger laid an information as to a sum of money having been transferred from his father's estate to Servilius, and stated that 81 sestertia had been deposited to enable him to secure the collusive failure of the prosecution. You are surprised at this folly; nay, what would you have said if you had heard him conducting the case, and the admissions which he made, foolish in the extreme as far as he was himself concerned, and positively shameful as regards his father? The jury called upon to consider their verdict was the same as that which had assessed the damages in the former case. The votes having turned out to be equal, Laterensis, from imperfect acquaintance with the laws, announced the verdict of each of the decuriae separately, and finally, according to the custom of the praetors, gave the decision "for the defendant." After leaving the court, Servilius being thenceforth regarded as acquitted, Laterensis read the 101st clause of the law, which contains the words "The verdict of the majority of the jurors shall be good and decisive." He thereupon did not enter him on the records as acquitted, but only entered a statement of the verdict of the several decuriae. Upon Appius, however, applying for a new trial, he said that he had consulted L. Lollius and would record the facts. So that now, being neither acquitted nor condemned, Servilius will be at the disposal of Pilius for an action for extortion, with a reputation already damaged. For Appius, though he had already sworn that there was no collusion, did not venture to dispute the right to prosecute with Pilius, and has himself had proceedings begun against him for extortion by the Servilii, besides having been indicted for violence by a creature of his own, Sextius Tettius. They are a worthy pair! As for political business, for many days past nothing at all has been done, owing to the suspense as to the arrangements to be made about the Gauls. At last, however, after frequent postponements and serious debates, and when Pompey's wishes had been clearly seen to incline in the direction of passing a decree for Caesar quitting his province after the 1st of March next, a decree of the senate was passed, which I hereby send you, and some resolutions which were reduced to writing. " Resolutions of the Senate. Twenty-ninth of September; in the temple of Apollo; the following assisted in drawing up the decree: L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of Gnaeus, of the Fabian tribe; Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, son of Quintus, of the Fabian tribe; L. Villius Annalis, son of Lucius, of the Pomptinian tribe; C. Septimius, son of Titus, of the tribe Quirina; C. Lucilius Hirrus, son of Gaius, of the tribe Pupinia; C. Scribonius Curio, son of Gaius, of the tribe Popilia; L. Atteius Capito, son of Lucius, of the tribe Aniensis; M Eppius, son of Marcus, of the tribe Terentina. Seeing that M Marcellus, the consul has made mention of the consular provinces, on that subject the senators have voted as follows: L. Paullus, C. Marcellus, the consuls, shall when they have entered on their office, on the first of the month of March that is about to fall within their year of office, bring the matter of the consular provinces before the senate, and shall not from the first of March bring any motion before the senate in preference thereto; nor shall anything be brought before the senate in conjunction therewith by the consuls. And for the sake of that business they shall hold meetings of the senate, comitial days notwithstanding; and shall draw up decrees of the senate. And when that business is being brought before the senate by the consuls, they may bring into the house those of the senators who are among the three hundred and sixty jurors without incurring penalties thereby. If on that matter it is necessary to bring any resolution before the people or plebs, Ser. Sulpicius and M Marcellus, the consuls, the praetors, and the tribunes of the plebs, to whichever of them it seems good, shall bring it before the people or plebs. But if they shall fail to bring it, whosoever are next in office shall bring it before people or plebs. No one vetoed. Twenty-ninth of September; in the temple of Apollo; the following assisted at drawing up the decree; L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of Gnaeus, of the Fabian tribe; Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, son of Quintus of the Fabian tribe; L. Villius Annalis, son of Lucius, of the Pomptinian tribe; C. Septimius, son of Titus, of the tribe Quirina; C. Lucilius Hirrus, son of Gaius, of the tribe Pupinia; C. Scribonius Curio, son of Gaius, of the tribe Popilia; L. Atteius Capito, son of Lucius, of the tribe Aniensis; M Eppius, son of Marcus, of the tribe Terentina. Seeing that M Marcellus, the consul has made mention of the consular provinces, on that subject the senators voted as follows: The senate is of opinion that none of those who have the power of vetoing or staying proceedings ought to offer any hindrance to a motion being brought before the house concerning the Republic of the Roman people, the Quirites, or a decree of the senate being made: whoso shall have so hindered or prohibited, the senate is of opinion that he has acted against the Republic. If anyone shall veto this decree, the senate orders that its resolution shall be committed to writing, and that the matter shall thereupon be brought before the senate (and people). C. Caelius, L. Vinicius, P. Cornelius, C. Vibius Pansa, tribunes, vetoed this decree. Ordered also by the senate concerning the soldiers now in the army of Gaius Caesar. as to those of them who have served their full time or have pleas to allege whereby they ought to be discharged, a motion shall be brought before the house to take cognizance of them and to look into their cases. If anyone vetoes this decree, ordered that the resolution be reduced to writing, and a motion brought before this house thereon. C. Caelius, C. Pansa, tribunes, vetoed this decree of the senate. Ordered also by the senate that into the province of Cilicia, into the eight remaining provinces administered by ex-praetors with authority of praetor, those who have been praetors and have not been to a province with imperium, such of them as in accordance with the decree of the senate are due to be sent into province as propraetors, shall be sent into provinces as by lot shall be assigned. If from the category of these, thus due to be sent into provinces, there be not sufficient in number to go into the said provinces, then from whichever in each case is the senior college of praetors who have not been to provinces, they shall in like manner go to provinces by lot.- if they are not sufficient to make up the number, then the members of the college next in order shall have their names put into the lottery, until such time as the number is made up to such number as is due to be sent into provinces. If anyone vetoes this decree of the senate, let the resolution be reduced to writing. C. Caelius, C. Pansa, tribunes, vetoed this decree of the senate." The following observation also of Cn. Pompeius attracted attention, and gave people a very great feeling of security, when he said that he could not, without unfairness, settle anything about Caesar's provinces before the 1st of March, but that after the 1st of March he would not hesitate. When asked, what if anyone on that date vetoed it, he said that it made no difference whether Caesar refused to obey the senate, or secured some one to prevent the senate passing a decree. "What if," said some one else, "he shall determine both to be consul and to keep his army?" To which he answered — with what mildness! — "What if my son should choose to strike me with his stick?" By such words as these he has made people think that some negotiation was going on between Pompey and Caesar. And so I think Caesar is minded to adopt one of two alternatives — either to remain in his province, and not be a candidate this next year, or, if he succeeds in getting elected, to leave his province. Curio is preparing to oppose him at every point. What he can do I don't know. I clearly see this, that if Curio keeps his wits about him, even though he effects nothing, he cannot possibly come utterly to grief. Curio treats me in a very gentlemanly way, and has forced a troublesome business on me by his present. For if he had not given me those African beasts, which had been imported for him to use at his games, the thing might have been omitted. Now, however, since give games I must, I would beg you, as I have often asked you before, to see that I have some beasts from your parts. I also commend to your attention the bond held by Sittius. I am sending my freedman Philo and the Greek Diogenes to Cilicia, to whom I have entrusted a message and a letter to you. Pray be so good as to give them, and the business on which I have sent them, your special attention. For in the letter, which I have given them for you, I have stated in detail how extremely important it is to me.

§ Fam.2.9  CCXXIII (Fam. II, 9) TO M. CAELIUS RUFUS (AT ROME) CILICIA (NOVEMBER) M. CICERO, proconsul, greets M. Caelius, curule aedile elect. First of all, as in duty bound, I congratulate you and express my delight at the rank which you have already attained, and your hopes of advancement in the future. It is somewhat late in the day: that, however, does not arise from my negligence, but from my ignorance of everything that is going on. For I am in a district where, partly from its distance, and partly from brigandage, all news is as late as possible in arriving. Besides congratulating you, I can scarcely find words to thank you for having had an election calculated, as you said in your letter, to give us an endless fund of laughter. And so, as soon as I heard the news, I imagined myself in that man's skin — you know whom I mean — and personified to myself all that "rising generation" about which he is always talking so big. "'Tis hard to say " — looking at you in my mind's eye the while, though far away, and as though I were talking to you face to face — " By heaven, how great, How grand the feat! " But since it had surpassed my expectation, I began the quotation: "A glad surprise Before my eyes." In fact, I all on a sudden stepped out "gay as gay can be," and when I was rebuked for being all but silly from excess of joy, I quoted in my defence, "Beyond all measure to express delight," etc.' In short, while laughing at him, I almost became another like him. But I will write more about this, and much else besides about you and to you, as soon as I have got a minute to spare. Meanwhile however, my dear Rufus, I am deeply attached to you — you whom fortune gave me to be the promoter of my dignity, and such a scourge, not of my enemies only, but of my jealous rivals also, that they had reason to be sorry in some cases for their evil deeds, and in others even for their stupidities.

§ Fam.2.10  CCXXIV (Fam. II, 10) TO M. CAELIUS RUFUS (AT ROME) PINDENISSUS, 26 NOVEMBER: M. CICERO, imperator, greets M. Caelius, curule aedile elect. Just see how letters fail to reach me! For I cannot be induced to believe that you have not sent me any letter since your election to the aedileship, considering the importance of the fact and the congratulation for which it called: on your account, because it was what I was hoping for, on that of Hillus (you see I lisp) because it was what I had not expected. However, be assured that I have received no letter from you since that glorious election, which transported me with delight. This makes me fear that the same may happen to my letter. For my part, I have never sent a single packet home without an enclosure for you, and nothing can be more delightful and beloved than you are to me. But let us return (not "weturn," for I have lost my lisp) to business. It is as you desired. For you could have wished me, you say, to have no more trouble than just enough for the laurel. You are afraid of the Parthians, because you have no confidence in the forces at my disposal. Well, the course of affairs has been as follows. On the announcement of a Parthian invasion, relying on certain difficulties in the country and on the natural features of the mountains, I led my army to Amanus, supported by a fairly good contingent of auxiliary forces, and by a certain prestige attaching to my reputation among populations who had no personal knowledge of me. For one often hears in these parts, "Is that the man by whom the city — whom the senate — ?" You can imagine the rest. By the time I had arrived at Amanus, which is a mountain common to me and Bibulus, the dividing line being the watershed, our friend Cassius, to my great joy, had repulsed the enemy from Antioch: Bibulus had taken over his province. Meanwhile, with my full forces I harassed the population of Amanus, our immemorial foes. Many were killed and taken prisoners, the rest were scattered: the fortified Strongholds were taken by surprise and burnt. Accordingly, after a complete victory, having been acclaimed imperator at Issus — in which place, as I have often been told by you, Clitarchus related to you that Darius was conquered by Alexander — I drew off my army to the most disturbed part of Cilicia. There for the past twenty-five days I have been assailing a very strongly fortified town called Pindenissus with earthworks, pent-houses, towers, and with such great resources and energy, that the only thing now wanting to the attainment of the most glorious renown is the credit of taking the town; and if, as I hope, I do take it, I will then at once send an official despatch. For the present I content myself with writing this to you, to give you hope of attaining your wish. But to return to the Parthians, the present summer has had the fairly fortunate result I have mentioned: for the next, there is much cause for alarm. Wherefore, my dear Rufus, be vigilant: in the first place, that I may have a successor: but if that shall turn out to be, as you write, too much of a business, then, what is easy enough, that no additional period be imposed. About politics I expect in your letters, as I have said before, current events and, even more, conjectures of the future. Wherefore I beg you earnestly to write me an account of everything in the greatest detail.

§ Fam.8.10  CCXXV (Fam. VIII, 10) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN CILICIA) ROME, 15 NOVEMBER: I have been much disturbed by the despatches of C. Cassius and Deiotarus For Cassius has written to say that the forces of the Parthians are across the Euphrates: Deiotarus that they started for our province by way of Commagene. For my part, my chief alarm has been on your account, knowing as I do what your state of preparation in the way of an army is, lest this inroad should in any way endanger your prestige. For I should have had some fear for your life, even if you had had a more adequate army: as it is, the slenderness of your forces made me forbode a retreat, not a battle, on your part. What view people would take of that, and how far what you were compelled to do would be likely to be considered satisfactory — about this I am still feeling anxious, and shall not cease to be alarmed till I hear of your having reached Italy. But the news of the passage of the Parthians has given rise to various suggestions. One man is for sending Pompey, another against Pompey's removal from the city, another for sending Caesar with his own army, another the consuls; no one, however, is for sending any who are in Rome without office by a senatorial decree. The consuls, moreover, for fear of this decree being passed for their leaving Rome in military uniform, or of the business being transferred to some one else, which would involve a slight upon themselves as having been passed over, are so unwilling to have any meeting of the senate at all, that they are getting a reputation for a want of energy in public business. But whether it is carelessness, or slackness, or the fear which I have suggested, behind this pretence of moderation there is concealed a disinclination to a province. No despatch has arrived from you, and had not that of Deiotarus followed his, it was beginning to be believed that Cassius, in order to represent devastation caused by himself as the work of the Parthians, invented 'the war, sent some Arabs into the province, and told the senate that they were Parthians. Wherefore I advise you to describe minutely and cautiously the state of things in your part of the world, whatever it is, that you may not be said either to have been filling some particular person's sails, or to have kept back what it was important to know. We have now come to the last period of the year: for I write this letter on the 15th of November. I see plainly that nothing can be done before the 1st of January. You know how slow and ineffective Marcellus is, and how dilatory Servius. What sort of men do you suppose they are, or how can they possibly do what is against their inclination, when things which they so wish they yet carry on so languidly as to give the impression of not wishing them? Again, when the new magistrates come into office, if there is a Parthian war, this question will take up their first months. But if; on the other hand, there turns out to be no war, or only one such as you or Your successors can manage with a small reinforcement, I Perceive that Curio will bestir himself with two objects: first, to take something away from Caesar; and, secondly, to bestow something on Pompey, however insignificant and valueless the contribution may be. Moreover, Paullus talks about the province with irrational violence. His intemperance will be resisted by our friend Furnius: about several others I cannot form an opinion. This is all I know: other possible events I cannot yet decipher. I know that time brings many developments and upsets many arrangements: but whatever is going to happen will be confined within these limits. I have this addition to make to the proceedings of Curio — his proposal as to the Campanian land: as to which they say that Caesar is indifferent, but that Pompey is much opposed, lest it should be unoccupied and at Caesar's disposal when he returns. As to your leaving your province, I cannot promise to take treasures to get a successor appointed: but I will at least pledge myself that your time is not prolonged. It is for you to consider whether, if the state of affairs, if the senate urge you to stay, if a refusal on our part cannot decently be made, you choose to persevere in your determination. My only business is to remember with what solemnity at your departure you laid the injunction on me not to allow of its happening.

§ Fam.2.7  CCXXVI (Fam. II, 7) TO C. SCRIBONIUS CURIO (IN ROME) CILICIA, 10 DECEMBER: It is not usual to find fault with a tardy congratulation, especially if it has been omitted by no negligence: for I am far off, and news reaches me slowly. However, I both congratulate you and heartily wish that your tribunate may redound to your lasting reputation; and I exhort you to direct and control everything by your own good sense, and not allow yourself to be carried away by suggestions of others. There is no one who can give you wiser advice than you can give yourself: you will never make a slip, if you listen to your own heart. I don't write this inconsiderately: I am fully conscious to whom I am writing: I know your courage, I know your good sense. I am not afraid of your acting timidly or foolishly, if you maintain what you feel in your own heart to be right. To what a political situation you have, I don't say fallen, but come — for it is by your own deliberate choice and not by chance that you have brought your tribuneship into the very midst of a crisis — you, of course, perceive. I do not doubt that you are considering how decisive in politics is the choice of seasons, how rapidly events shift, how uncertain are results, how pliable are men's wills, what treachery, what falseness, there is in life. But I beseech you, Curio, give your whole heart and mind, not to any new principle, but to that which I mentioned at the beginning of my letter: commune with your own thoughts, take your own self into council, listen to yourself, obey your-self. It is not easy to find anyone capable of giving better advice to another than you are: to yourself, at any rate, no one will give better. Good heavens! why am I not there to be, if you will, the spectator of your glory, or the sharer, or partner, or assistant in your counsels? Although of this you do not in the least stand in need, yet, after all, the greatness and intensity of my affection would have secured my being of some use to you by my advice. I will write at greater length to you at another time: for within the next few days I intend to send some letter-carriers from my own establishment, that, since I have performed a public service with good results and to my own satisfaction, I may in one despatch give an account to the senate of the events of the whole summer. As to your election to the priesthood, you will learn from the letter which I delivered to your freedman Thraso how much trouble I have taken, and how difficult a matter it has been to deal with and maintain. For yourself, Curio, in the name of your uncommon affection for me, and my own unparalleled one for you, I beg you not to allow any extension of time to be made in my case to this burden of a province. I urged this on you when I was with you, and when I had no idea that you were going to be tribune this year, and I have often made the same request by letter; but then it was made to you as a member of the senate, who was yet a young man of the highest rank and the greatest popularity, now it is to I tribune, and that tribune a Curio: not to get any novel decree — which is usually somewhat more difficult — but to prevent any novelty: to support both a decree of the senate and laws, and to allow the terms under which I left Rome to remain as they are. This I earnestly beg of you again and again.

§ Fam.7.32  CCXXVIII (Fam. VII, 32) TO P. VOLUMNIUS EUTRAPELUS (AT ROME) CILICIA (DECEMBER) Owing to your having in familiar style, as you were quite entitled to do, dropped your praenomen in your letter to me, I was at first doubtful whether it did not come from Volumnius the senator, with whom I am very intimate, but presently the εὐτραπελία of the letter itself convinced, me that it was yours. In that letter I was delighted with everything except this: you are not showing yourself a very energetic agent in maintaining my rights in my mines of (Attic) salt. For you say that, ever since my departure, everybody's bons mots, and among those even Sestius's, are fathered on me. What! do you allow that? Don't you stand up for me? Don't you protest? Why, I did hope that I had left my bons mots with such a clear stamp on them, that their style might be recognized at a glance. But as there is so much scum in the city, that nothing can be so graceless as not to seem graceful to some one, do your best, an you love me, to maintain, on your solemn affidavit, that they are none of mine, unless sharp double meaning, subtle hyperbole, neat pun, laughable παρὰ προσδοκίαν — unless everything else, in fact, which I set forth in the person of Antonius in my second book de Oratore, shall appear en regle and really witty. For as to your complaints about the law courts I care much less. Let all the defendants, for what I care, go hang! If Selius himself is eloquent enough to establish his freedom, I don't trouble myself. But my prerogative of wit, please let us defend by any amount of injunctions. In that department you are the only rival I fear: I don't think anything of the rest. Do you suppose I am laughing at you? I never knew before that you were so sharp! But, by Hercules, joking apart, I did think your letter very witty and neatly turned. But those particular stories, laughable as they in fact were, did not, all the same, make me laugh. For I am anxious that the friend to whom you refer should have as much weight as possible in his tribuneship, both for his own sake — for, as you know, he is a great favourite of mine — and also, by Hercules, for that of the Republic, which, however, ungrateful to myself it may be, I shall never cease to love. You, however, my dear Volumnius, since you have begun doing so, and now see also that it gives me pleasure, write to me as often as possible about affairs in the city, about politics. I like the gossiping style of your letter. Farther — more, speak seriously to Dolabella, whom I see and believe to be very anxious for my regard, and to be most affectionately disposed towards me: encourage him in that disposition, and make him wholly mine; not, by Hercules, that there is anything lacking in him, but as I am very much set upon it, I don't think I am showing too much anxiety.

§ Fam.13.53  CCXXIX (Fam. XIII, 53) TO Q. MINUCIUS THERMUS (PROPRAETOR ASIA) CILICIA I have long been very intimate with L. Genucilius Curvus, who is a very excellent man and of an exceedingly grateful disposition. I recommend him to you without reserve, and introduce him to you, in the first place, that you may give him facilities generally in all his affairs, so far as your honour and position will allow — and, indeed, that will be in everything, for he will never ask anything of you inconsistent with his own character, or, indeed, with yours. But in a special manner also I commend to your protection his business concerns in Hellespontus: first, to enable him to maintain the privilege in regard to land-holding, which the state of Parium gave him by decree, and which he has always maintained without dispute; and, in the second place, that you should, in case of his being involved in a suit with a Hellespontian, refer it to that diocese. However, I do not think that, having recommended him with the utmost earnestness to you in general, I need go into particular cases affecting him. The upshot is this: whatever attention, kindness, or mark of honour you bestow on Genucilius, I shall consider that you have bestowed on me and my interests.

§ Fam.13.56  CCXXX (Fam. XIII, 56) TO Q. MINUCIUS THERMUS (IN ASIA) CILICIA Cluvius of Puteoli is very attentive to and intimate with me. He believes that, having business in your province, unless, during your governorship, he has secured it by a letter of recommendation from me, he will have to put it down as lost and hopeless. Well, now, since so heavy a burden is laid on me by a very kind friend, I will also lay a burden on you, warranted by your eminent services to me; and yet in doing so I am unwilling to be troublesome to you. The people of Mylasa and Alabanda owe Cluvius money. Euthydemus told me, when I was at Ephesus, that he would see that ecdici were sent from Mylasa to Rome. That has not been done. I hear that legates have been sent; but I prefer ecdici, in order that some settlement may be made. Therefore I beg you to order them and the Alabandians to send ecdici to Rome. Besides this, Philocles of Alabanda has mortgaged some property to Cluvius. The time of the mortgage has expired. I would like you to see that he either gives up possession of the property mortgaged and surrenders it to Cluvius's agents, or pays the money; and farther, that the people of Heraclea and Bargylia, who are also in his debt, should either pay the money or give him a lien on their revenues. The people of Caunus also owe him money, but they allege that they have placed the money on deposit. I should like you to investigate that, and, if you ascertain that they have not deposited the money, either by edict or decree, to see that Cluvius's claim to interest is secured to him by your decision. I am the more anxious on these points, because the interests of our friend Cn. Pompeius is involved also, and because he appears to me to be even more anxious about it than Cluvius himself. I am very desirous that he should be satisfied with my exertions on his behalf. On these matters I earnestly and repeatedly ask your assistance.

§ Fam.13.55  CCXXXI (Fam. XIII, 55) TO Q. MINUCIUS THERMUS (IN ASIA) CILICIA Although, when I spoke to you at Ephesus of the business of my legate M. Anneius, I gathered that you were strongly inclined to do anything for his own sake, nevertheless, I value M. Anneius so highly, and think that you value me so highly, that I do not hesitate to allow my recommendation to be added as a finishing stroke to your existing willingness to serve him. For, though I have long been attached to M. Anneius — as I have practically shown by offering him a legation unasked, after having refused many who asked for it — yet, since he has been associated with me in war and the conduct of military affairs, I have come to know that his courage, good sense, honour, and loyalty to myself are so eminent, that I now value him as highly as anyone in the world. You know that he has a suit with the people of Sardis: I explained the merits of the case to you at Ephesus: but you will, nevertheless, inquire into it more easily and satisfactorily on the spot. As to the rest, by Hercules, I long hesitated what exactly to write to you. For your manner of deciding questions at law is justly celebrated, and known to your high credit. We, again, have no need of anything in this case, but that you should decide the question according to your usual principles. But yet, since I am fully aware how great the influence of a praetor is — especially a praetor whose character for honesty, firmness, and equity is acknowledged on all hands — I do ask of you, in the name of our very close intimacy and of the many mutual good services, which have benefited us both equally, by a display of cordiality, by an exercise Of influence, and by an exertion of zeal to convince M. Anneius, not only that you are his friend (this he does not doubt, for he has often remarked it to me), but that you have been made much more his friend by this letter of mine. Finally, I don't think you feel any hesitation as to how well you will be investing your kindness with a man of the most grateful disposition and most excellent principles.

§ Fam.13.61  CCXXXII (Fam. XIII, 61) TO P. SILIUS NERVA (PROPRAETOR OF BITHYNIA AND PONTUS) CILICIA I think you know that I was very intimate with T. Pinnius. This fact he testified by his will, for he appointed me both a guardian and an heir in the second degree. To his son, who is attached to me and is a man of learning and good character, the people of Nicaea owe a large sum of money, amounting to eight million sesterces, and, as I am informed, they are especially anxious to pay him. I shall be much obliged therefore — for not only the other guardians, who know how highly you value me, but the boy himself also are convinced that you will do anything for me — if you will take the trouble to see, as far as your honour and position will allow, that as large a part of the money as possible is paid to Pinnius on account of the people of Nicaea.

§ Fam.13.62  CCXXXIII (Fam. XIII, 62) TO P. SILIUS NERVA (IN BITHYNIA) CILICIA I was very much obliged to you in the business of Atilius — for though I was late in the field I managed by your kindness to save a respectable Roman knight — and, by Hercules, I always did believe that you were one on whom I could rely, owing to the attachment to and rare friendship with Lamia common to us both. Accordingly, first of all I offer you my thanks for having freed me from all annoyance; then I follow this up with a piece of impudence — but I will make up for it: for I will always pay you attention and stand up for you with the utmost energy. Pray, if you care for me, be sure you hold my brother Quintus in the same regard as you do me. By so doing you will crown your kindness and greatly enhance it.

§ Fam.13.64  CCXXXIV (Fam. XIII, 64) TO P. SILIUS NERVA (IN BITHYNIA) CILICIA My friend Nero thanks me in terms of quite astonishing and incredible warmth, saying that no mark of honour which could have been given him was omitted by you. You will be richly rewarded by him, for he is the most grateful young fellow in the world. But, by heaven, I too am exceedingly obliged to you: for of all our men of rank I value none more than him. And so, if you do what he wished me to ask of you, I shall be supremely obliged: first, in the matter of Pausanias of Alabanda, if you would keep the business back till Nero arrives — I have gathered that he is very interested in him, and so I put this request strongly — and next if you would regard as specially commended to your care the people of Nysa, whom Nero regards as his special friends and is most energetic in protecting and defending, so that this city may feel that its best protection consists in Nero being its patron. I have often recommended Servilius Strabo to you: I now do so with the greater earnestness that Nero has taken up his case. I only ask you to push on the business, so as not to leave an innocent man a prey to the greed of some governor unlike yourself. This will be a favour to me; but I shall also consider it an instance of your natural kindness. The upshot of this letter is that you should advance Nero in all possible ways, as you have started doing and have done. Your province, unlike this of mine, offers a wide theatre for displaying the glorious reputation of a young man of high birth, genius, and disinterested conduct. Wherefore, if he enjoys your support, as I am sure he will do and has done, he will be enabled to secure and bind to his interests most respectable bodies of clients which are a heritage from his ancestors. In this respect, if you give him your assistance, with the man himself you will have made a splendid investment of your kindness, but you will also have exceedingly obliged me.

§ Fam.13.65  CCXXXV (Fam. XIII, 65) TO P. SILIUS NERVA (PROPRAETOR OF BITHYNIA AND PONTUS) CILICIA I am very intimate and in constant communication with P. Terentius Hispo, who is engaged in the collection of the pasture-dues as deputy-manager, and many important services, equally advantageous to us both, have been interchanged between us. It is of capital importance to his reputation to settle the contracts with the remaining states. I don't forget that we tried to do that at Ephesus, but were quite unable to get the assent of the Ephesians. But since, as is the general opinion, and, as I understand, you have secured as well by your singular uprightness, as by your kindness and gentleness, that the slightest expression of your wish meets with the readiest consent of the Greeks to any object you have in view, I beg you with more than common earnestness, for the sake of my credit, to determine that Hispo shall gain this distinction. I may add that I am closely connected with the partners in the pasture company, not only because that company as a body is my client, but also because I am very intimate with most of the individual partners. By acting thus you will not only have assisted my friend Hispo in consequence of a recommendation of mine, and given the company still greater confidence in me, but you will yourself also receive the most ample reward from the regard of this most gratefully disposed man, as well as the thanks of the partners, who are men of the highest position, and you will have done me personally a very great kindness. Pray be assured that in your whole province and the whole sphere of your government there is nothing that you can do that could gratify me more.

§ Fam.13.9  CCXXXVI (Fam. XIII, 9) TO P. FURIUS CRASSIPES (QUAESTOR OF BITHYNIA) CILICIA Although in a personal interview I recommended as earnestly as I could to you the publicani of Bithynia, and though I gathered that by your own inclination, no less than from my recommendation, you were anxious to promote the advantage of that company in every way within your power, yet, since those interested thought it of great importance to them that I should inform you by letter what my feeling towards them was, I have not hesitated to write you this. For I wish you to believe that, while I have ever had the greatest pleasure in doing as much as possible for the order of publicani generally, yet this particular company of Bithynia has my special good wishes. The company, owing to the rank and birth of its members, constitutes a very important section of the state for it is made up of members of the other companies; and it so happens that a very large number of this company are on extremely intimate terms with me, and especially the man who is at the present time at the head of the business, P. Rupilius, son of Publius, of the tribe Menenia, the master of that company. Such being the case, I beg you with more than common earnestness to protect Cn. Pupius, who is an employee of this company, by every sort of kindness and liberality within your power; and to secure, as you easily may, that his services shall be as satisfactory as possible to the company, while at the same time determining that the property and interests of the partners — as to which I am well aware how much power a quaestor possesses — should be secured and promoted. While you will in this be doing me a very great favour, I can at the same time from personal experience give you my promise, and pledge my word for it, that you will find the partners of the Bithynia company mindful of and grateful for any service you have rendered them.

§ Fam.15.4  CCXXXVII (Fam. XV, 4) TO M. PORCIUS CATO (AT ROME) CILICIA (JANUARY) Your own immense prestige and my unvarying belief in your consummate virtue have convinced me of the great importance it is to me that you should be acquainted with what I have accomplished, and that you should not be ignorant of the equity and disinterestedness with which I protected our allies and governed my province. For if you knew these facts, I thought I should with greater ease secure your approval of my wishes. Having entered my province on the last day of July, and seeing that the time of year made it necessary for me to make all haste to the army, I spent but two days at Laodicea, four at Apamea, three at Synnada, and the same at Philomelium. Having held largely attended assizes in these towns, I freed a great number of cities from very vexatious tributes, excessive interest, and fraudulent debt. Again, the army having before my arrival been broken up by something like a mutiny, and five cohorts — without a legate or a — military tribune, and, in fact, actually without a single centurion-having taken up its quarters at Philomelium, while the rest of the army was in Lycaonia, I ordered my legate M. Anneius to bring those five cohorts to join the main army; and, having thus got the whole army together into one place, to pitch a camp at Iconium in Lycaonia This order having been energetically executed by him, I arrived at the camp myself on the 24th of August, having meanwhile, in accordance with the decree of the senate, collected in the intervening days a strong body of reserve men, a very adequate force of cavalry, and a contingent of volunteers from the free peoples and allied sovereigns. While this was going on, and when, after reviewing the army, I had on the 28th of August begun my march to Cilicia, some legates sent to me by the sovereign of Commagene announced, with every sign of panic, yet not without some foundation, that the Parthians had entered Syria. On hearing this I was rendered very anxious both for Syria and my own province, and, in fact, for all the rest of Asia. Accordingly, I made up my mind that I must lead the army through the district of Cappadocia, which adjoins Cilicia. For if I had gone straight down into Cilicia, I could easily indeed have held Cilicia itself, owing to the natural strength of Mount Amanus — for there are only two defiles opening into Cilicia from Syria, both of which are capable of being closed by insignificant garrisons owing to their narrowness, nor can anything be imagined better fortified than is Cilicia on the Syrian side — but I was disturbed for Cappadocia, which is quite open on the Syrian side, and is surrounded by kings, who, even if they are our friends in secret, nevertheless do not venture to be openly hostile to the Parthians. Accordingly, I pitched my camp in the extreme south of Cappadocia at the town of Cybistra, not far from Mount Taurus, with the object at once of covering Cilicia, and of thwarting the designs of the neighbouring tribes by holding Cappadocia. Meanwhile, in the midst of this serious commotion and anxious expectation of a very formidable war, king Deiotarus, who has with good reason been always highly honoured in your judgment and my own, as well as that of the senate — a man distinguished for his goodwill and loyalty to the Roman people, as well as for his eminent courage and wisdom — sent legates to tell me that he was on his way to my camp in full force. Much affected by his zeal and kindness, I sent him a letter of thanks, and urged him to hasten. However, being detained at Cybistra five days while maturing my plan of campaign, I rescued king Ariobarzanes, whose safety had been entrusted to me by the senate on your motion, from a plot that, to his surprise, had been formed against him: and I not only saved his life, but I took pains also to secure that his royal authority should be respected Metras and Athenaeus (the latter strongly commended to me by yourself), who had been exiled owing to the persistent enmity of queen Athenais, I restored to a position of the highest influence and favour with the king. Then, as there was danger of serious hostilities arising in Cappadocia in case the priest, as it was thought likely that he would do, defended himself with arms — for he was a young man, well furnished with horse and foot and money, and relying on those all who desired political change of any sort — I contrived that he should leave the kingdom: and that the king, without civil war or an appeal to arms, with the full authority of the court thoroughly secured, should hold the kingdom with proper dignity. Meanwhile, I was informed by despatches and messengers from many sides, that the Parthians and Arabs had approached the town of Antioch in great force, and that a large body of their horsemen, which had crossed into Cilicia, had been cut to pieces by some squadrons of my cavalry and the praetorian cohort then on garrison duty at Epiphanea. Wherefore, seeing that the forces of the Parthians had turned their backs upon Cappadocia, and were not far from the frontiers of Cilicia, I led my army to Amanus with the longest forced marches I could. Arrived there, I learnt that the enemy had retired from Antioch, and that Bibulus was at Antioch. I thereupon informed Deiotarus, who was hurrying to join me with a large and strong body of horse and foot, and with all the forces he could muster, that I saw no reason for his leaving his own dominions, and that in case of any new event, I would immediately write and send to him. And as my intention in coming had been to relieve both provinces, should occasion arise, so now I proceeded to do what I had all along made up my mind was greatly to the interest of both provinces, namely, to reduce Amanus, and to remove from that mountain an eternal enemy. So I made a feint of retiring from the mountain and making for other parts of Cilicia: and having gone a day's march from Amanus and pitched a camp, on the 12th of October, towards evening, at Epiphanea, with my army in light marching order I effected such a night march, that by dawn on the 13th I was already ascending Amanus. Having formed the cohorts and auxiliaries into several columns of attack — I and my legate Quintus (my brother) commanding one, my legate C. Pomptinus another, and my legates M. Anneius and L. Tullius the rest — we surprised most of the inhabitants, who, being cut off from all retreat, were killed or taken prisoners. But Erana, which was more like a town than a village, and was the capital of Amanus, as also Sepyra and Commoris, which offered a determined and protracted resistance from before daybreak till four in the afternoon Pomptinus being in command in that part of Amanus — we took, after killing a great number of the enemy, and stormed and set fire to several fortresses. After these operations we lay encamped for four days on the spurs of Amanus, near the Arae Alexandri, and all that time we devoted to the destruction of the remaining inhabitants of Amanus, and devastating their lands on that side of the mountain which belongs to my province. Having accomplished this, I led the army away to Pindenissus, a town of the Eleutherocilices. And since this town was situated on a very lofty and strongly fortified spot, and was inhabited by men who have never submitted even to the kings, and since they were offering harbourage to deserters, and were eagerly expecting the arrival of the Parthians, I thought it of importance to the prestige of the empire to suppress their audacity, in order that there might be less difficulty in breaking the spirits of all such as were anywhere disaffected to our rule. I encircled them with a stockade and trench: I beleaguered them with six forts and huge camps: I assaulted them by the aid of earthworks, pent-houses, and towers: and having employed numerous catapults and bowmen, with great personal labour, and without troubling the allies or costing them anything, I reduced them to such extremities that, after every region of their town had been battered down or fired, they surrendered to me on the fifty-seventh day. Their next neighbours were the people of Tebara, no less predatory and audacious: from them after the capture of Pindenissus I received hostages. I then dismissed the army to winter quarters; and I put my brother in command, with orders to station the men in villages that had either been captured or were disaffected. Well now, I would have you feel convinced that, should a motion be brought before the senate on these matters, I shall consider that the highest possible compliment has been paid me, if you give your vote in favour of a mark of honour being bestowed upon me. And as to this, though I am aware that in such matters men of the most respectable character are accustomed to ask and to be asked, yet I think in your case that it is rather a reminder than a request which is called for from me. For it is you who have on very many occasions complimented me in votes which you delivered, who have praised me to the skies in conversation, in panegyric, in the most laudatory speeches in senate and public meeting: you are the man to whose words I ever attached such weight as to hold myself in possession of my utmost ambition, if your lips joined the chorus of my praise. It was you finally, as I recollect, who said, when voting against a supplicatio in honour of a certain illustrious and noble person, that you would have voted for it, if the motion had related to what he had done in the city as consul. It was you, too, who voted for granting me a supplicatio, though only a civilian, not as had been done in many instances, "for good services to the state," but, as I remember, "for having saved the state." I pass over your having shared the hatred I excited, the dangers I ran, all the storms that I have encountered, and your having been entirely ready to have shared them much more fully if I had allowed it; and finally your having regarded my enemy as your own; of whose death even — thus showing me clearly how much you valued me — you manifested your approval by supporting the cause of Milo in the senate. On the other hand, I have borne a testimony to you, which I do not regard as constituting any claim on your gratitude, but as a frank expression of genuine opinion: for I did not confine myself to a silent admiration of your eminent virtues — who does not admire them? But in all forms of speech, whether in the senate or at the bar; in all kinds of writing, Greek or Latin; in fine, in all the various branches of my literary activity, I proclaimed your superiority not only to contemporaries, but also to those of whom we have heard in history. You will ask, perhaps, why I place such value on this or that modicum of congratulation or compliment from the senate. I will be frank with you, as our common tastes and mutual good services, our close friendship, nay, the intimacy of our fathers demand. If there ever was anyone by natural inclination, and still more, I think, by reason and reflexion, averse from the empty praise and comments of the vulgar, I am certainly the man. Witness my consulship, in which, as in the rest of my life, I confess that I eagerly pursued the objects capable of producing true glory: mere glory for its own sake I never thought a subject for ambition. Accordingly, I not only passed over a province after the votes for its outfit had been taken, but also with it an almost certain hope of a triumph and finally the priesthood, though, as I think you will agree with me, I could have obtained it without much difficulty, I did not try to get. Yet after my unjust disgrace — always stigmatized by you as a disaster to the Republic, and rather an honour than a disaster to myself — I was anxious that some very signal marks of the approbation of the senate and Roman people should be put on record. Accordingly, in the first place, I did subsequently wish for the augurship, about which I had not troubled myself before; and the compliment usually paid by the senate in the case of success in war, though passed over by me in old times, I now think an object to be desired. That you should approve and support this wish of mine, in which you may trace a strong desire to heal the wounds inflicted upon me by my disgrace, though I a little while ago declared that I would not ask it, I now do earnestly ask of you: but only on condition that you shall not think my humble services paltry and insignificant, but of such a nature and importance, that many for far less signal successes have obtained the highest honours from the senate. I have, too, I think, noticed this — for you know how attentively I ever listen to you — that in granting or withholding honours you are accustomed to look not so much to the particular achievements as to the character, the principles and conduct of commanders. Well, if you apply this test to my case, you will find that, with a weak army, my strongest support against the threat of a very formidable war has been my equity and purity of conduct. With these as my aids I accomplished what I never could have accomplished by any amount of legions: among the allies I have created the warmest devotion in place of the most extreme alienation; the most complete loyalty in place of the most dangerous disaffection; and their spirits fluttered by the prospect of change I have brought back to feelings of affection for the old rule. But I have said too much of myself, especially to you, in whom singly the grievances of all our allies alike find a listener. You will learn the truth from those who think themselves restored to life by my administration. And while all with nearly one consent will praise me in your hearing as I most desire to be praised, so will your two chief client states — the island of Cyprus and the kingdom of Cappadocia — have something to say to you about me also. So, too, I think, will Deiotarus, who is attached to you with special warmth. Now, if these things are above the common run, and if in all ages it has been rarer to find men capable of conquering their own desires than capable of conquering an enemy's army, it is quite in harmony with your principles, when you find these rarer and more difficult virtues combined with success in war, to regard that success itself as more complete and glorious. I have only one last resource — philosophy: and to make her plead for me, as though I doubted the efficacy of a mere request: philosophy, the best friend I have ever had in ail my life, the greatest gift which has been bestowed by the gods upon mankind. Yes! this common sympathy in tastes and studies — our inseparable devotion and attachment to which from boyhood have caused us to become almost unique examples of men bringing that true and ancient philosophy (which some regard as only the employment of leisure and idleness) down to the forum, the council chamber, and the very camp itself — pleads the cause of my glory with you: and I do not think a Cato can, with a good conscience, say her nay. Wherefore I would have you convince yourself that, if my despatch is made the ground of paying me this compliment with your concurrence, I shall consider that the dearest wish of my heart has been fulfilled owing at once to your influence and to your friendship.

§ Fam.15.10  CCXXXVIII (Fam. XV, 10) TO L. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (CONSUL) CILICIA (JANUARY) Since the dearest wish of my heart has come to pass, that of all the Marcelli and even the Marcellini — for the good feeling of your whole family and name towards me has ever been extraordinary — since, I say, it has come to pass that your possession of the consulship enables you to satisfy the views of all your family, that consulship in which it also happens that my public services and the glory and distinction accompanying them have fallen, I ask you a favour which it is very easy for you to grant, since the senate, I believe, is not averse, namely, to see to a senatorial decree being passed in as complimentary terms as possible when my despatch is read. Had the ties between you and me been less than those between me and all the members of your family, I would have made those my spokesmen to you, by whom you know well that I am regarded with special affection. The kindnesses done me by your father are very eminent, nor could anyone have been a warmer friend to my personal safety or my political position. As for your brother, I don't think that there is anyone who does not know how much he values and has ever valued me. In fact, your whole house has always honoured me with the most important services of every kind. Nor, indeed, have you yielded to any of your family in affection for me. Wherefore I ask you, with more than common earnestness, to determine that, as far as you are concerned, I shall receive the highest possible compliment, and to consider that in voting a supplicatio and in all other matters you have sufficient motive for defending my reputation.

§ Fam.15.13  CCXXXIX (Fam. XV, 13) TO L. AEMILIUS PAULLUS (CONSUL) CILICIA, JANUARY: IT has been one of the strongest wishes of my heart to be in Rome with you on many accounts, but especially that you might have clearly before your eyes, both during your canvass and your actual administration, how eager I was to fulfil my obligation to you. And, indeed, as far as your canvass was concerned, it always seemed to me to be plain sailing, yet I nevertheless wished to give some actual aid. In your consulship truly I am anxious that you should have still less difficulty, yet I am vexed to think that I, as consul, had a full view of your zealous kindness when you were a young man, whilst you cannot have one of mine now that I am so far advanced in life. But there has been, I think, a kind of fatality ordaining that you should always have the opportunity of advancing my honour, while I never had anything — except the wish — enabling me to repay you. My consulship and my restoration alike you honoured by your support. It has happened that the occasion for my performing active public service has fallen in your consulship. Accordingly, though your brilliant position and high rank, as well as my own great office and high reputation, would seem to demand that I should urge you, and beg you at some length, to see to a decree of the senate being passed on the subject of my services in as complimentary terms as possible, yet I do not venture to put it strongly to you, lest I should appear to have forgotten your habitual kindness to me, or should admit the thought of your having forgotten. Accordingly, I will do as I think you would wish, and confine my petition to a few words, when it is made to a man that all the world knows has done me eminent service. If others had been consuls, you are the man of all others, Paullus, to whom I should have sent asking you to secure for me their warmest support. As it is, the chief power and greatest influence being in your hands, and our close connexion being known to everybody, I do beg you warmly, that you should see to a decree being passed in regard to my services in as complimentary terms and as speedily as possible. That these services deserve honour and congratulation you will learn from the despatch which I have addressed officially to you, your colleague, and the senate. I would further beg you to undertake the support of my other interests of every kind, and above all of my reputation. And let it be among your first concerns, as I asked you in a previous letter also, to prevent any extension of time in my tenure of office. I am eager to see you while you are still consul, and to gain all I hope for in your consulship, whether here or at home. Farewell.

§ Fam.15.14  CCXL (Fam. XV, 14) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (PROQUAESTOR IN SYRIA) CILICIA, JANUARY: M. CICERO, imperator, greets C. Cassius, proquaestor. You introduce M. Fadius to me as a friend, but I make no fresh acquisition in him; for it is now many years since he has been among my cherished possessions, and valued by me for his exceeding kindness and attentions. Nevertheless, the discovery of his attachment to you has made him still dearer to me. So, though your letter did some good, yet a still more powerful recommendation was my clear perception and recognition of his own warm feeling for you. However, I will take every pains to do for Fadius what you ask. It is yourself that I could wish for many reasons had been able to visit me: in the first place, that I might see you after so long a separation — a man whom I have long valued so highly; in the second place, that I might offer my personal congratulations, as I have already done by letter; thirdly, that we might consult together on whatever matters we wished, you on yours, I on mine; and lastly, that our friendship, which has been kept up by the interchange of signal services on both sides, but has had its continuity interrupted by periods of separation, might be greatly strengthened. Since this was not to be, we will avail ourselves of what letters can do for us, and shall, though separated, attain almost the same objects as we should have done if we had met face to face. One satisfaction, of course, that which arises from the actual sight of you, cannot be obtained by the help of letters: the other, the pleasure, I mean, of congratulating you, though more meagre than it would have been, if I could have seen your face while offering my congratulations, I have nevertheless already experienced and now give myself again: and I do indeed congratulate you both on the splendour of your services, and also for their opportuneness, in that at the moment of your departure from it you have been followed by the loudest praises and the liveliest gratitude of your province. My third point — that we might have consulted each other about our affairs — that let us do equally by letter. On every other account I am strongly of opinion that you ought to hasten your return to Rome. For things there, as I left them, showed no signs of a storm as far as you are concerned, and owing to your recent very splendid victory I imagine that your arrival will be attended by great eclat. But if the difficulties under which your relations are labouring are no more than you can combat, hasten home: nothing could be nobler or more popular: but if they are more serious, take care that your return does not fall at a most inopportune moment. You are the sole judge on this point, for you alone know your powers. If you are strong enough to do it, you are sure of praise and popularity: if you are clearly not strong enough, it will be easier for you to support popular remark by staying away. For myself, however, the request I make to you in this letter is the same as that in my previous one — that you should exert yourself to the utter-most to prevent any extension of time being made to my provincial government, which both by decree of the senate and by the law was to be of one year's duration. I press this upon you with warmth, because I consider my entire fortunes to depend upon it. You have Paullus to support you — my friend, and a very warm one: you have Curio and Furnius. I beg you to exert yourself, with the assurance that it is every-thing in the world to me. My last point was the strengthening of our friendship. On that there is no need of more words. You sought my society in your boyhood: I for my part ever thought that you would be a credit to me. You were, moreover, a protection to me in the darkest hour of my fortunes. To these facts I may now add the very close intimacy which has sprung up since you left town between me and your relative Brutus. Therefore, in the talents and high character which distinguish you both, I believe that I have a very great reserve of pleasure and honour in store. I beg you earnestly to ratify this expectation, and also to write to me at once, and as often as possible after your arrival at Rome.

§ Fam.8.6  CCXLI (Fam. VIII, 6) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN CILICIA) ROME, FEBRUARY: I RAVE no doubt the news has reached you of Appius being impeached by Dolabella. But there is by no means the feeling against him which I had expected. For the truth is, Appius acted with a good deal of sense. No sooner did Dolabella appear at the tribunal, than he entered the city and gave up his demand for a triumph. By thus acting he at once took the edge off popular talk, and showed himself also to be better prepared than his accuser had expected. His chief hope is now in you. I know you don't dislike him. It is now in your power to attach him to you as strongly as you choose. If you had never had a quarrel with him, you would now have had a freer hand in the whole business: as it is, if you push legality to the proverbial extreme, you must be on your guard against being thought not to have been quite candid and sincere in renouncing your hostility. In this respect you will certainly be on safe ground in doing him a favour, if so minded; for no one will say that you have been debarred from doing a duty by the influence of intimacy and friendship. It occurs to my mind that, between the application to the praetor and the formal notice of impeachment, Dolabella's wife has divorced him. 'I remember the commission you gave me as you were leaving: I think you have not forgotten what I wrote to you. It is not as yet the time for entering into farther details. I can only give you this hint: if you like the suggestion, do not, nevertheless, at the present moment betray your sentiments, but wait to see how he comes out of this case. Take care that it does not bring discredit on you if it leaks out: assuredly, if any expression of your feeling were to crop up now, it would gain a greater notoriety than is either decent or expedient. Nor will he be able to hold his tongue on a circumstance which chimed in so pat with his hopes, and which will reflect so much additional lustre upon him in conducting the prosecution: especially as he is the sort of man to be scarcely able to refrain, even though he knew it was ruinous to himself to mention the fact. Pompey is said to be very anxious on Appius's behalf, so much so that it is even thought that he means to send one or other of his sons to you. Here we are all for his acquittal, and, by Hercules, every disclosure that could reflect disgrace or dishonour on him has been carefully barred. Our consuls are indeed energetic: they haven't been able to get a single decree through the senate, except the one for the Latin festival! Our friend Curio's tribuneship is deadly dull — as cold as ice. In short, I can hardly express to you the flatness of everything at Rome. If it had not been for a good fight I am having with the shopkeepers and water companies, a lethargy would have settled upon the state. If the Parthians don't make it warm for you, we here are stiff with cold. However, Bibulus has done his best: without the help of the Parthians he has managed to lose a poor cohort or two in Amanus. So it is reported here. I said just now that Curio was much in the cold: well, he is now getting warm I for he is being pulled to pieces with a hot fire of criticism. For, just because he did not get his way about intercalation, he has with the most outrageous levity ratted to the popular party, and begun speaking up for Caesar, and has made a great parade of a road law, not much unlike Rullus's agrarian law, and another about the sale of provisions, which enacts that the aediles should measure goods. He had not done this when I wrote the first part of my letter. Pray, if you render any assistance to Appius, let me have some of the credit. I advise you not to commit yourself in regard to Dolabella: that is the course most conducive at once to the proposal to which I am referring, to your own position, and to your reputation for fairness-It will be a disgrace to you if I have no Greek panthers.

§ Fam.8.7  CCXLII (Fam. VIII, 7) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN CILICIA) ROME (FEBRUARY) How soon you want to quit your province I don't know; for myself, the greater your success up to now, the more shall I be tormented by the danger of a Parthian war, as long as you remain where you are, for fear some alarm should dissipate the laughter in which I usually indulge. This letter is shorter than usual, but the letter-carrier of the publicani was in a hurry, and I was suddenly called upon for it. I had already delivered a longer one to your freedman. Moreover, absolutely nothing new has happened, unless you would like my letter to be filled with such anecdotes as the following (and I am sure you would): The younger Cornificius has betrothed himself to Orestilla's daughter Paulla Valeria, sister of Triarius, has divorced her husband without cause alleged, on the very day he was to arrive from his province. She is going to marry D. Brutus. She has yet given no notice to the pontifices. Servius Ocella would never have convinced anybody that he was an adulterer, if he had not been twice caught in three days. You will ask where? In the last place, by Hercules, I should have wished! I leave you something to find out from others. And I rather like the idea of an imperator questioning one person after another with what woman so-and — so has been caught.

§ Fam.3.7  CCXLIII (Fam. III, 7) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME) LAODICEA (FEBRUARY) I will write to you at greater length when I have got more leisure. I write this in haste, Brutus's messengers having come to me at Laodicea and told me that they are hurrying off to Rome. Accordingly, I am giving them no letters except for you and Brutus. Commissioners from Appia have handed me in a roll from you full of most ill-founded complaints of my having hindered their building by a rescript. Moreover, in the same letter you ask me to grant them permission to go on building as soon as possible, lest they should be stopped by winter; and at the same time you complain of my forbidding them to raise a tax till I granted them leave to do so after investigation: for you say that it was tantamount to stopping the work, seeing that I could not hold such investigation till after my return from Cilicia at winter time. Hear my answer to all these charges, and see how much fairness there is in your expostulation. In the first place, on my being approached by persons professing that unbearable exactions were being made upon them, what unfairness was there in my writing to forbid their proceeding till I had investigated the facts and the merits of the case? In my not being able to do so till winter? For that is what you say in your letter. As though for purposes of investigation I must go to them, and not they come to me! "Such a long way off;" you say. What! at the time you delivered that letter to them, in which you remonstrated with me against preventing them from finishing their building before winter, did you suppose that they would not come to me? However, on that point, at least, they made a ridiculous blunder: for the letter they brought with them asking to be allowed to carry on the work in the summer, they delivered to me after midwinter. But let me tell you, first, that the number of those appealing against the tax is far in excess of those who wish it levied; and, second, that I will, nevertheless, do what I may suppose you to wish. So much for the Appiani. I have been informed by Pausanias, Lentulus's freedman and my marshal, that you had complained to him of my not having gone to meet you. I treated you with contempt, you think,' and my conduct was the height of arrogance! Your servant having come to me nearly at midnight and announced that you intended coming to meet me at Iconium before daybreak, and it being uncertain by which of the two roads (for there were two), I sent your most intimate friend Varro to meet you by one, and Q. Lepta, my captain of engineers, by the other. I charged them both to hasten back to me first, in order that I might start to meet you. Lepta came hurrying back and told me that you had already passed my camp. I came in all haste to Iconium. The rest you already know. Was I likely not to try and meet you? You — an Appius Claudius — an imperator — in spite of immemorial custom — lastly (and this is the strongest point of all) a friend. Considering, too, that in such matters of etiquette I am usually even too precise for my official rank and position. But enough of this. Pausanias also told me that you said, "What an Appius went to meet a Lentulus, a Lentulus an Ampius, and a Cicero refuse to meet an Appius?" Heavens! do even you — a man, in my opinion, of supreme good sense, of great learning, of the widest knowledge of affairs, and I may add a man of politeness (which the Stoics are quite right in counting among the virtues) — do you, I say, suppose that any Appiusism or Lentulusism has more influence with me than the distinctions bestowed by virtue? Before I had earned what are held by mankind to be the most splendid honours, I yet was never dazzled by those high-sounding names of yours: it was the men who had bequeathed them to you that I regarded as great. But when I had so obtained and so administered the highest offices of state, as to make me think that there was nothing left for me to acquire in furtherance of my honour or glory, I hoped that I had become, never indeed the superior, but at least the equal of you nobles. Nor, by Hercules, did I perceive that Pompey, whom I put above anybody who has ever lived, nor P. Lentulus, whom I put above myself, take any other view. If you think otherwise, you will not go wrong if, in order to understand what high birth and nobility are, you would study somewhat more carefully what Athenodorus, son of Sardon, says on this subject. But to return to the point — I would have you believe that I am not only your friend, but your very warm friend. I will assuredly by every act of kindness in my power make it possible for you to judge that to be unmistakably the case. As for yourself, however, if your object is to be thought, in my absence, to be under a less heavy obligation to me, I free you from that anxiety: "For by my side are those To honour me, and, chief, right-counselling Zeus." If, however, you are by nature prone to spy out faults, you will not, indeed, succeed in making me less zealous for you; but you will succeed in making me rather more indifferent as to how you take my goodwill. I write this to you with some candour, relying on the consciousness of my services and my friendly feeling, which, as it was deliberately adopted, I shall preserve as long as you are willing that I should do so.

§ Fam.2.14  CCXLIV (Fam. II, 14) TO M. CAELIUS RUFUS (AT ROME) LAODICEA (FEBRUARY) I am very intimate with M. Fadius, a most excellent man and most accomplished scholar, and I am wonderfully attached to him, as well for his great talents and consummate learning, as for the singular modesty of his behaviour. Pray take up his business as though it were my own. I know you distinguished advocates: one must commit a murder if one wishes the benefit of your services: but in the case of this man I will accept no excuse. You will throw up every other engagement, if you love me, when Fadius desires your services. I am eagerly looking out and longing for news from Rome, and before all I desire to know how you are: for, owing to the severity of the winter, it is now a long time since any news found its way to us.

§ Fam.9.25  CCXLV (Fam. IX, 25) TO L. PAPINIUS PAETUS (AT ROME) LAODICEA (FEBRUARY) Your letter has made me a consummate general: I had really no idea that you were so accomplished a tactician. I see you have been poring over the treatises of Pyrrhus and Cineas. So I am thinking of obeying your maxims: more than that, I mean to have some light vessels on the coast: against your Parthian horse they say that no better equipment can be discovered. But why jest? You don't know what a great general you are talking to! The Cyropaedeia, which I had well thumbed over, I have thoroughly exemplified throughout my command. But we will have our joke out when we meet, and that I hope before very long. Now listen to the word of command, or rather "attention!" as they used to say in old times. With M. Fadius, as I think you know, I am very intimate, and I am much attached to him, as well from his extreme honesty and singular modesty of behaviour, as from the fact that I am accustomed to find him of the greatest help in the controversies which I have with your fellow tipplers the Epicureans. He came to see me at Laodicea, and I wanted him to stay with me, but he was suddenly agitated by a most distressing letter containing the announcement that an estate near Herculaneum, of which he is joint owner, had been advertised for sale by his brother Q. Fadius. M. Fadius was exceedingly annoyed at this, and thought that his brother (who is not a wise man) had taken that extreme step at the instigation of his own private enemies. In these circumstances, my dear Paetus, as you love me, take the whole case in hand and free Fadius from his distress. We want you to use your influence, to offer your advice, or even to make it a matter of personal favour. Don't let brothers go to law and engage in a suit discreditable to both. Two of Fadius's enemies are Mato and Pollio. Need I say more? I really cannot, by Hercules, express in writing how much I shall be obliged to you if you put Fadius at his ease. He thinks that this depends on you, and makes me think so also.

§ Fam.13.59  CCXLVI (Fam. XIII, 59) TO C. CURTIUS PEDUCAEANUS (PRAETOR) LAODICEA (FEBRUARY) I am particularly attached to M. Fadius and see a very great deal of him, and my intimacy with him is of very old standing. In the suit in which he is engaged I don't ask for your decision — you will, as your honour and position demand, stand by your edict and the principles of administration you have established — but only that he may have as ready an approach to you as possible, may obtain his just rights without reluctance on your part, and may find by experience that my friendship, even though I am far away, is of use to him, especially with you. This much I do earnestly and repeatedly ask of you.

§ Fam.13.58  CCXLVII (Fam. XIII, 58) TO C. TITUS RUFUS (PRAETOR URBANUS) LAODICEA (FEBRUARY) L. Custidius is my fellow tribesman, fellow townsman, and intimate friend. He has a suit at law, which he is about to bring before you. I limit my recommendation of him to you — as your honour and my modesty demand — to asking for him a ready access to you: that in all just demands he may be successful without any reluctance on your part, and may have reason to know that my friendship, though I am very far away, is of service to him, especially with you

§ Fam.3.9  CCXLVIII (Fam. III, 9) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME) LAODICEA, FEBRUARY: AT last! A letter worthy of Appius Claudius, full of kindness, cordiality, and consideration! No doubt the sight of the city restored your old city-bred courtesy. For the letters which you sent me on your journey before leaving Asia — one about my forbidding legates to start for Rome, the other about stopping the building operations at Appia — were very unpleasant reading for me. Accordingly, conscious of my unbroken friendliness to you, I wrote back with some little irritation. However, when I read the letter you gave to my freedman Philotimus, I saw and understood that there were many persons in the province who did not wish us to entertain the feelings towards each other which we actually were entertaining; but that as soon as you approached the city, or rather as soon as you saw your relatives, you ascertained from them how loyal I had been to you in your absence, how careful and unremitting in fulfilling all my obligations to you. Accordingly, you can imagine how much I value that sentence in your letter, "If anything occurs affecting your position, though that is hardly possible, yet, if it does, I will return your favours in full." That, however, will be an easy task for you: for there is nothing impossible for zeal and kindness, or rather affection. For my part, though I always myself thought that it would be so, and was frequently assured of it in letters, I yet was extremely delighted by the announcement in your letter of your strong, or rather certain, hope of a triumph. And, indeed, it was not because it made it the easier for me to obtain one — for that would be a motive truly Epicurean — but, by Hercules, because the splendour of your position is dear to me in itself and for itself Wherefore, as you have more people than others have whom you know to be starting for this province — for they nearly all come to you to ask if you have any commands — you will very greatly oblige me if you will send me a letter, as soon as you have obtained what you confidently expect and I heartily wish. If the process of making up their minds and the dilatory proceedings of the long bench, as our friend Pompey calls it, deprive you of this or that particular day (for what more can they do?), yet your high claims will hold the field. But if you care for me, if you wish me to care for you, write to me, that I may enjoy the delight as soon as possible. I should wish you also to pay me the promised addition to your former present. I am both anxious to complete my knowledge of augural law, and am also, by Hercules, incredibly delighted with attentions and presents from you. As for the wish you express for something of the same sort from me, I certainly must consider the best style of composition to repay you for your gift: for it is assuredly not my way — putting as I do, and as you often observe with surprise, so much energy into the task of writing — to let myself be thought to have been slack about it, especially in a case involving a charge not simply of slackness, but of ingratitude as well. However, I will see about it. The promise you make, I beg you, in the name of your good faith and energetic character, as well as in that of our friendship — no affair of yesterday, but now a thoroughly established fact — to take measures to fulfil, and to exert yourself to secure a supplicatio being voted in my honour in as complimentary terms and at as early a date as possible. I certainly sent my despatch later than I could have wished, in regard to which the difficulty of navigation was not the only irritating circumstance: I believe, in fact, that my despatch arrived just when the senate was in vacation. But this I did under your influence and by your advice, and I think I was quite right not to send a despatch the very moment I was greeted as imperator, but only when other services had been performed and the summer campaign was concluded. You will then, I hope, see to these matters, as you profess your intention of doing, and will regard myself, my affairs, and my friends as recommended to your care.

§ Fam.13.63  CCL (Fam. XIII, 63) TO P. SILIUS NERVA (PROPRAETOR OF BITHYNIA AND PONTUS) LAODICEA, FEBRUARY: I never thought that I could possibly be at a 1055 for words, but I certainly am so in writing a letter of commendation for M. Laenius. I will, therefore, state the case to you in a few words, yet enough to show you my feelings. Both I and my dearest brother have a value for M. Laenius which passes belief. This arises, indeed, from his very numerous services to us, but also from his extreme honesty and the eminent correctness of his conduct. It is with the greatest reluctance that I am parting with him, as well on account of our close intimacy and the charm of his society, as because I am glad to have the advantage of his candid and sound advice. But I am afraid that you will be thinking that the words, for which I said that I was at a loss, are already more than enough. I commend him to you with all the warmth you perceive that I am bound to feel for one of whom I use such language as the above: and I ask you earnestly and repeatedly to facilitate his business in your province, and to give him personally any information you think you fairly can. You will find him most reasonable and gentlemanlike. Therefore I beg you to send him back to me as soon as possible, disembarrassed and free, with his business accomplished as far as it lies in your hands. You will very greatly oblige me and my brother by so doing.

§ Fam.13.54  CCLII (Fam. XIII, 54) TO Q. MINUCIUS THERMUS (PROPRAETOR OF ASIA) LAODICEA (MARCH) I am obliged to you for many instances of your attention to my recommendations, but above all for your very courteous treatment of M. Marcilius, son of my friend and interpreter. He has arrived at Laodicea, and in an interview with me has expressed great gratitude to you, and to myself on your account. I therefore ask you as a farther favour, that, as you find your kindness well laid out and meeting with gratitude from those persons, you would be still more ready to oblige them, and would endeavour, as far as your honour shall permit, to prevent the young man's mother-in-law from being prosecuted. I recommended Marcilius to you before with some earnestness: I do so now with still greater, because, in a long course of his service as apparitor, I have found his father Marcilius to be peculiarly and almost incredibly trustworthy, disinterested, and scrupulous.

§ Fam.13.57  CCLIII (Fam. XIII, 57) TO Q. MINUCIUS THERMUS {PROPRAETOR IN ASIA) LAODICEA, MARCH: The more I am assured every day by letters and messages that a serious war is on foot in Syria, the more earnest am I in my request to you, in the name of our close friendship, that you would send back my legate M. Anneius to me at the earliest possible moment. For by his activity, wisdom, and knowledge of military affairs I well know that both I and the state can receive the most important assistance. Indeed, had it not been of such urgent importance to him, he would never have been induced to quit me, nor I to let him go. I think of starting for Cilicia about the 1st of May. Before that day M. Anneius is bound to rejoin me. The request which I pressed upon you very earnestly, both in a personal interview and by letter, I now reiterate — that you should take pains to enable him to settle the business he has with the Sardians as the justice of his case and the dignity of his character demand. I gathered from your remarks, when I conversed with you at Ephesus, that you were ready to do anything for the sake of M. Anneius himself. Yet I should wish you to think that you could not oblige me more than by letting me see that he has settled his business to his satisfaction owing to your support, and I beg you again and again to see that done at the earliest possible time.

§ Fam.2.11  CCLIV (Fam. II, 11) TO M. CAELIUS RUFUS (CURULE AEDILE) LAODICEA, 4 APRIL: WOULD you have supposed that words could possibly fail me, and not only oratorical words, such as you advocates use, but even this common vernacular which I employ? Still, fail me they do, and for this reason — I am surprisingly anxious as to what decree may pass about the provinces. An astonishing yearning for the city possesses me, an incredible longing for my friends and for you among the first, and at the same time a weariness of a province, either because I seem to have gained so much reputation, that an accession to it is now not so much to be sought, as some change of fortune to be feared; or because the whole business is one unworthy of my powers, able and accustomed as I am to sustain more important burdens in the public service; or, again, because an alarm of a serious war is hanging over us, which I seem likely to avoid by quitting my province on the day appointed. The panthers are being energetically attended to by the ordinary hunters in accordance with my orders: but there is a great scarcity of them, and such as there are, I am told, complain loudly that they are the only things for which traps are set in all my province, and they are said in consequence to have resolved to quit our province for Caria. However, the business is being pushed on zealously, and especially by Patiscus. All that turn up shall be at your service, but how many that is I don't in the least know. I assure you I am much interested in your aedileship: the day itself reminds me of it; for I am writing on the very day of the Megalensia. Please write the fullest particulars as to the state of politics in general: for I shall look on information from you as the most trustworthy I get.

§ Fam.2.13  CCLVI (Fam. II, 13) TO M. CAELIUS RUFUS (CURULE AEDILE) LAODICEA, MAY: THOUGH{ your letters are rare (perhaps they don't all reach me), yet I always receive them with delight. For instance, the last received — how sensible it is! How kind and instructive! Though in all points I had made up my mind that I must act as you advise, yet my plans are confirmed when I see that farseeing and faithful advisers agree with me. I am very fond of Appius, as I have often remarked to you in the course of conversation, and I perceived that the moment our quarrel was at an end he began to like me. For when consul he showed me great respect, and as a friend he has made himself agreeable, and has taker great interest in my pursuits. That good services on my side were in truth not wanting you are witness, and are supported now, I think, by Phania coming in pat, like a character in a farce; and, by heaven! I valued him still more from perceiving that he was attached to you. You know that I am now wholly Pompey's: you understand that Brutus is the object of my warm affection. What is there to prevent my wishing to embrace a man who has all the advantages of youth, wealth, honours, genius, children, relations, marriage connexions, and friends: especially as he is my colleague, and in regard even to the reputation and learning of the college shows great value for me? I write at the greater length on this subject, because your letter hints a kind of doubt as to my feelings towards him. I suppose you have been told something: it is false, believe me, if you have. My official principles and policy present certain points of contrast with his method of administering the province. From that circumstance, perhaps, people have suspected that this contrast arises from estrangement of feeling, not mere difference of opinion. I have, however, never done or said anything with the object of lessening his reputation. Moreover, since this trouble that has come upon him from the rash act of our Dolabella, I am putting myself forward as his apologist and defender. Your letter mentioned "a lethargy on the state." I am very glad to hear it, and rejoice that our friend has been frozen by the public tranquillity. Your last page, in your own handwriting, was like a dagger in my heart. What! Curio now standing up for Caesar? Who had ever expected it? No one but myself! For, as I live, I thought that would happen. Immortal gods! How I yearn for the laugh we should have over it together! My intention is, since I have finished hearing my cases, have enriched the states, have secured for the publicani even the arrears of the last quinquennium without a murmur from the allies, and have made myself agreeable to private persons from the highest to the lowest, to start for Cilicia on the 15th of May, and, as soon as I have reached the summer quarters and have got the troops established in them, to quit the province in accordance with the senatorial decree. I desire to see you while still aedile; and the city, as well as all my friends, and you among the first, inspire me with extraordinary longing.

§ Fam.2.18  CCLVII (Fam. II, 18) TO Q. MINUCIUS THERMUS (PROPRAETOR OF ASIA) LAODICEA (MAY) I am exceedingly glad that such services as I have rendered to Rhodon, and any other kindnesses I have done you and yours, have pleased you, the most grateful of men; and let me assure you that I feel greater interest every day in promoting your position, though, indeed, you have yourself so enhanced it by the purity and lenity of your administration, that it seems scarcely to admit of any increase. But as I think over your plans, I am more and more convinced every day of the soundness of the advice which I originally gave our friend Ariston, when he came to see me, that you would be incurring dangerous enmity, if a young man of powerful connexions and high birth received a slight from you. And, by heaven! it certainly will be a slight: for you have no one with you of higher official rank. The man himself, too, to say nothing of his high birth, has claims superior to those of the excellent and unimpeachable officers, your legates, in this special particular, that he is a quaestor and your quaestor. That no individual can, however provoked, do you any harm I quite see; yet I would not like you to have three brothers, of the highest birth, energetic, and not without eloquence, angry with you at once, especially on any good ground: men too whom I see will be successively tribunes during the next three years. Who knows, again, what sort of times await the Republic? In my opinion, they will be stormy. Why should I wish you to incur the alarms which tribunes can cause, especially when, without exciting remark from anyone, you can give the preference to a quaestor over legates of only quaestorian rank? And if he shows himself worthy of his ancestors, as I hope and trust he may do, the credit will to a certain extent be yours: if, on the other hand, he comes to grief in any way, the discredit will be all his, not yours at all. I thought, as I am on the point of starting for Cilicia, that I ought to write and tell you what occurred to me as being for your interests. Whatever you decide upon doing I pray heaven to prosper. But if you will listen to me, you will avoid enmities, and take measures for your tranquillity in the future.

§ Fam.13.2  CCLVIII (Fam. XIII, 2) TO GAIUS MEMMIUS (IN MITYLENE) (LAODICEA, MAY?) I am very intimate with C. Avianius Evander, who is at present lodging in your treasure-chamber, as well as with his patron M. Aemilius. I ask you, therefore, with more than common earnestness, to give him any accommodation you can, without causing yourself inconvenience, as to his place of residence. For owing to his having many orders on hand for a number of people, it would hurry him very much if he were forced to quit your house on the 1st of July. My modesty will not allow me to use more words in preferring my request: yet I feel sure that, if it is not inconvenient, or not very much so, you will feel as I should have felt if you had asked a favour of me. I, at any rate, shall be extremely obliged to you.

§ Fam.13.3  CCLIX (Fam. XIII, 3) TO GAIUS MEMMIUS (IN MITYLENE) (LAODICEA, MAY?) AULUS FUFIUS is an intimate friend of mine, and most attentive and attached to me. He is a good scholar, a very good-natured man, and in the highest degree worthy of your friendship. Pray treat him as you promised me personally you would. It will oblige me in the very highest degree possible. You will also bind him to you himself for ever by the strongest ties of affection and respect.

§ Fam.3.10  CCLX (Fam. III, 10) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME) LAODICEA, MAY: WHEN information reached me of the rash measure of those who were causing you trouble, although I was at first greatly disturbed at the news, since nothing could have happened more contrary to my expectation, yet when I had collected my thoughts, the sequel seemed to me to present no difficulty, because I felt great confidence in you and your friends, and many reasons occurred to me for thinking that this trouble would redound to your honour. One thing I was really sorry for, when I saw that a most certain and most thoroughly deserved triumph had been snatched from you by this step on the part of your jealous rivals. But if you rate it at the value which I have always thought should be put upon it, you will be acting wisely and will come off victorious, the chagrin of your enemies furnishing you with the most complete of triumphs. For I see clearly that the effect of your energy, power, and wisdom will be to make your enemies bitterly repent their ill-considered measure. As for myself, I solemnly promise and vow before heaven that in support of your dignity — I prefer that word to "safety " — I will in this province, which you once governed, undertake and carry through the duties and role of an intercessor by my entreaties, of a relation by my exertions, of a man beloved (I hope) among the states by the exertion of my influence, of an imperator by using the full weight of my office. I would have you both demand and expect everything of me: I shall surpass your expectations by my services. Q. Servilius delivered me a very short letter from you, which yet seemed to me unnecessarily long: for I think myself wronged in being asked. I could have wished that no such occasion had arisen for you to see how highly I, how highly Pompey (who, as is only right, is ever the first of men to me), how highly Brutus values you: though you might have perceived it in our daily intercourse, as you will now. But since the occasion has arisen, if I omit anything in my power, I shall confess to a crime and a disgrace. Pomptinus, who has been treated by you with eminent and exemplary good faith, and of whose obligations to you I am a witness, has shown that he remembers you with all the affection which you can justly claim. He left me, much against my will, under the pressure of urgent private affairs, yet, when he saw that it was of importance to you, though on the point of embarking at Ephesus, he returned to Laodicea. When I see that you are likely to command innumerable instances of similar zeal in your service, I can have no manner of doubt that your present anxiety will eventually strengthen your position. If, indeed, you succeed in getting censors elected, and if you conduct your censorship as you both ought and can, I am convinced that you will be for all time a tower of strength not only to your-self, but to all your family. Pray fight and strive that there be no prolongation of my office, so that, when I have done all you want for you here, I may have the opportunity there also of giving practical expression to my goodwill to you. What you tell me of the support offered you by all men and all ranks does not at all surprise me, and is exceedingly grateful to my feelings: the same account has reached me from my various friends. Accordingly, it gives me great satisfaction, not only that a proper tribute is paid to you — whose friendship to me is a source of pleasure as well as honour — but also, in truth, that there is still left in our country an almost unanimous feeling of affection for gallant and energetic men: which in my eyes has ever been the one reward for my own days of labour and nights of toil. It has, I confess, caused me great surprise that this young man — whom I have twice defended to the utmost of my power on capital charges — should be so headstrong as, when entering on a course of hostility to you, to forget the patron of his fortunes and whole career; especially considering that you had enough and to spare of every kind, whether of honour or material support, while he himself, to put it at the lowest, has large deficiencies in these respects. Some silly and childish talk of his had been already reported to me by our friend M. Caelius; about which talk also I have had many communications from you. For myself, I should have been much more inclined to break off an old connexion with a man who had entered on a course of hostility to you, than to make a new one. For you ought not to doubt the warmth of my feelings towards you: it is notorious to everyone in the province, and was not less so in Rome. Nevertheless, a certain suspicion is hinted at in your letter, and a doubt on your part, in regard to which the present is not a suitable time to remonstrate with you, yet the occasion requires that I should clear myself. For when, pray, did I hinder any embassy being sent to Rome to convey an encomium upon you? Or, supposing me to be your declared enemy, how could I have done anything less likely to injure you, or how, if your secret enemy, have more openly betrayed my hostility? But if I had been as perfidious as those who attribute these motives to us, yet I at least should not have been such a fool as to betray either an enmity which I wished to conceal, or a burning desire to wound where it was impossible to damage you. I remember certain persons coming to me from Phrygia Epictetos, to inform me that some excessive sums were being voted for the expenses of some legates. To them I expressed an opinion, rather than gave an order, that votes for such expenses should conform as closely as possible to the lex Cornelia. And that I did not insist even on that is testified by the accounts of the boroughs, in which each entered as paid to your legates what they severally chose. But what a pack of lies has been foisted on you by a set of the most untrustworthy of men! Not only that the votes were cancelled, but that, when the legates had actually started, the money was demanded and forcibly recovered from their agents, and that many were thus prevented from going at all! I should have expressed some discontent and expostulated with you, had it not been, as I before observed, that I preferred at the present juncture to clear myself rather than accuse you, and thought this the more proper course. So not a word about you and your having believed it: but about myself I will say a few words as to why you ought not to have believed it. For if you hold me to be a good man, if you hold me to be worthy of the studies and philosophy to which I have devoted myself from boyhood, if you hold it proven in circumstances of the greatest gravity that my courage is fairly high and my wisdom none of the worst, you ought to know that there is nothing in my conduct as a friend — I don't say treacherous, designing, or deceitful — but even mean or cold. But if you choose to imagine me to be dark and mysterious, what could be less consonant with such a character than to disdain the friendship of a man in the highest possible position, or to attack his reputation in a province, after defending his credit at home? Or to display one's hostility where it was impossible to damage him, or to select for an occasion of treachery what would give the clearest indication of dislike, but would be the least effectual in inflicting a blow upon him? What reason, moreover, was there for my being so implacable to you, when my own brother had informed me that you had not been really hostile to me, even at a time when the assumption of such a part had almost been forced upon you? When, however, we had by mutual desire renewed our friendship, can you mention any request which you made to me during your consulship in vain, whether it was something you wished me to do, or a vote you wished me to support in the senate? What charge did you give me as I was seeing you off at Puteoli, in which I have not more than fulfilled your expectation by my energetic exertions? Again, if it is above everything the mark of selfish cunning to judge everything by the standard of one's own advantage, what could better suit my interests than the close alliance with a man of the highest rank and greatest official dignity, whose wealth, ability, sons, marriage connexions, blood-relations, could all greatly promote my honour, or, I may say, my security? All these advantages, after all, I did aim at in seeking your friendship — which I did not seek from any selfish cunning, but rather because I had some sound sense. Again, how powerful are those bonds in which I am the most willing of prisoners! — sympathy of tastes, charm of social intercourse, the refined pleasures of our life and its environment, our interchange of ideas in conversation, our deeper studies. And these all belong to private life. What about public ties between us? Our famous reconciliation, in which any inadvertence even is impossible without a suspicion of perfidy; our colleagueship in the most illustrious priesthood — in which, in the opinion of our ancestors, not only was no breach of friendship possible without impiety, but no election even into the college was permissible, if a man were on had terms with any of the existing members. But to pass over these ties, numerous and important as they are, was there ever anyone who valued another, or could or ought to value another, as highly as I do Cu. Pompeius, your daughter's father-in-law? For if services are to count — I consider that I owe him the restoration of country, children, life, rank, and, in a word, of myself. If the charm of social intercourse — what friendship between two consulars in our city was ever closer than ours? If those tokens of affection and kindness — what confidence has he ever withheld from me? What has he failed to discuss with me? What motion affecting himself in the senate has he wished should, in his absence, be moved by anyone else? What marks of honour has he not desired me to receive in the most complimentary form? Finally, with what courtesy, with what forbearance, did he endure my vehement pleading for Milo, though at times opposed to his own proposals! With what hearty zeal did he take measures to prevent my being reached by the hostile feelings aroused at that juncture, protecting me by his ad vice, his influence, and finally by his arms! At that crisis, indeed, such was his steadfastness, such his magnanimity, that, to say nothing of crediting some Phrygian or Lycaonian, as you did in the case of the legates, he would not believe malevolent remarks about me even from men of the highest rank. Therefore, as his son is your son-in-law, and as I am well aware, besides this connexion by marriage, how dear you are to Cn. Pompeius, and how precious in his sight, what ought my feelings towards you to be? Especially as he has written me such a letter that, had I been your enemy, as I am your most affectionate friend, I should have been softened towards you, and have surrendered myself to the wishes and authority of a man to whom I owed so much. But enough of this: it has been expressed already, perhaps, at greater length than was necessary. Let me now tell you what I have actually done and arranged. . .. And these things I am doing, and shall continue to do, rather in support of your dignity, than as a means of averting danger from you. For I shall soon, I hope, hear of your being censor; and the duties of that office, which require the greatest resolution and tact, I think you should meditate upon with greater earnestness and care than upon what I am doing here on your behalf.

§ Fam.2.19  CCLXI (Fam. II, 19) TO C. CAELIUS CALDUS (APPOINTED QUAESTOR FOR CILICIA) (CILICIA, JUNE) M. Tullius Cicero, imperator, son of Marcus, grandson of Marcus, greets C. Caelius Caldus, son of Lucius, grandson of Gaius, quaestor. When I first received the most welcome intelligence that the lot had assigned you to me as quaestor, I hoped that this chance would be a source of greater pleasure the longer you were with me in the province. For it appeared to me of great importance that the connexion between us, thus formed by fortune, should be supplemented by personal intercourse. When subsequently I failed to hear anything from yourself, or to receive a letter from anyone else as to your arrival, I began to fear, what I still fear may be the case, that I should have left the province before you arrived in it. However, when I was in camp in Cilicia, I received a letter from you on the 21st of June, expressed in the most cordial terms, and sufficiently manifesting your kindness and abilities. But it contained no indication of day or place of writing, nor of the time at which I might expect you; nor was the person who delivered it to me the one to whom you had given it: for then I might have ascertained from him where and when it was despatched. In spite of this uncertainty, I yet thought that I must contrive to send some of my orderlies and lictors to you with a letter. If you receive it in anything like time, you will be doing me a very great favour if you will join me in Cilicia as soon as you can. For though, of course, what your cousin Curius, who is, as you know, a very great ally of mine, and also what your relative and my most intimate friend C. Vergilius, have written to me about you with the greatest earnestness has, of course, very great importance in my eyes — as a serious recommendation of such very warm friends is bound to have — yet your own letter, and especially what you say about your own position and our connexion, has, to my mind, the greatest weight of all. No quaestor could have been assigned to me that would have been more welcome. Wherefore whatever marks of distinction I can show you, shall be shown, demonstrating to all the world that I fully recognize your own and your ancestors' high position. I shall be better able to do this, if you join me in Cilicia, which I think is very much to my interest and that of the state, and above all to your own.

§ Fam.2.12  CCLXII (Fam. II, 12) TO M. CAELIUS RUFUS (CURULE AEDILE) CILICIA, JUNE: I am much worried by events in the city. Such stormy meetings are reported to me, such a disturbed Quinquatrian holiday: for what has happened since I have not yet heard. But after all nothing worries me so much as the being debarred in the midst of these troubles from having a laugh with you at the comic points in them. These are, in fact, numerous, but I dare not trust them to paper. What annoys me is that I have not as yet received a line from you on these subjects. Wherefore, though by the time you read this letter I shall have finished my year of office, pray, nevertheless, send a letter to meet and enlighten me on all public affairs, that I may not arrive home an utter stranger. No one can do this better than you. Your friend Diogenes, a steady good man, has left me in company with Philo for Pessinus. They are on their way to visit Adiatorix, where they are fully prepared to find neither kindness nor a full exchequer. The City, the City, my dear Rufus — stick to that and live in its full light! Residence elsewhere — as I made up my mind in early life — is mere eclipse and obscurity to those whose energy is capable of shining at Rome. Knowing this thoroughly, would that I had been true to my convictions! Before heaven, I do not compare all the advantages of a province put together with one stroll and one conversation with you. I hope I have gained a reputation for integrity. I had that, however, quite as much from rejecting as from administering a province. "But what about the hope of a triumph?" say you. I had already had a sufficiently glorious triumph: I never ought to have been so long separated from all that I love best. But I shall, I hope, soon see you. Mind you send some letters to meet me worthy of yourself.

§ Fam.3.11  CCLXIV (Fam. III, 11) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME) CILICIA, JUNE: M. CICERO to Appius Pulcher, (as I hope) censor. Being in camp on the river Pyramus, I received two letters from you at the same time, forwarded by Q. Servilius from Tarsus. One of them was dated 5th of April, the other, which seemed to me the more recent, was not dated. I will therefore answer the former first, in which you tell me about your acquittal on the charge of lese majeste. I had, indeed, been long ago informed of this by letters, messages, and in fine by common rumour, for nothing could be more notorious — not because anyone had expected a different result, but because, as a rule, no report about men of illustrious reputation gets out without making a stir — yet your letter increased the satisfaction I felt in the news, not only because it spoke in clear terms and with greater fullness than the talk of the common people, but also because I felt more really like congratulating you when I heard your own story from yourself. Accordingly, I embraced you in imagination, since you were not here, and, kissing the actual letter, I also congratulated myself. For compliments paid by the whole people, the senate, and the jurors to ability, energy, and virtue (perhaps I flatter myself in imagining myself possessed of these) I look upon as paid to myself also. Nor is it the splendid result of your trial so much as the perverted intelligence of your enemies that excites my wonder. "Bribery or maiestas," you will say, "what does it matter which?" Nothing substantially: for the former you have never touched, and the latter you have promoted rather than injured. But the fact is that maiestas (in spite of Sulla) is of such a vague nature as to permit of the safe denunciation of anyone: while bribery is a word of such definite meaning that either the accusation or the defence must be discreditable. For how can there be any doubt as to whether bribery has been employed or not? Now, who ever suspected your successive elections? How unlucky that I wasn't there! What roars of laughter I would have caused! But as to the trial for malestas, there were two things that gave me very great pleasure in your letter: one was your saying that you were defended by the Republic itself — for even if good and gallant citizens were as plentiful as possible, it still ought to preserve men like you; while in the actual state of affairs it is more bound than ever to do so, when there is such a dearth of such men in every office and every age, that a state so bereaved ought to welcome guardians like you with open arms: the other is your wonderfully high praise of the good faith and good feeling of Pompey and Brutus. I am delighted at their honourable conduct and cordial kindness, both because they are your relations and my very dear friends, and also because one of them is the first of men of every age and country, while the other has long been the first of our younger men, and will soon, I hope, be first of all the citizens. As to having the witnesses who took bribes punished with ignominy by their several states, unless something has already been done by the agency of Flaccus, it shall be done by mine on my return journey through Asia. Now I come to your second letter. You send me a sketch-plan, so to speak, of the state of things affecting us both, and of the whole condition of politics: in this I am much relieved by the sagacity of your letter. For I perceive that the dangers ahead are at once less formidable than I feared, and the safeguards greater, if; as you say, all the real strength of the state has devoted itself to Pompey as its leader: and I perceived at the same time that your spirit was alert and keen in the defence of the Republic, and I experienced a wonderful pleasure from the energy which made you determine, in spite of very pressing engagements, that the state of the Republic should be known to me by your means. Certainly: keep the books on the augural science for the time when we take a holiday together; for when I wrote dunning you for the performance of your promise, I thought of you as being outside the walls and enjoying the most complete leisure. As it is, however, instead of your augural books, I shall expect all your speeches complete. Decimus Tullius, to whom you gave a message for me, has not yet been to see me, nor have I at present any of your friends with me; only my own, who, however, are all yours. I don't understand what you mean by my "somewhat angry letter." I have written to you twice, clearing myself carefully, and only gently finding fault with you for having been too ready to believe things about me. This is a kind of expostulation which seems to me proper for a friend; but if you don't like it, I won't employ it again. But if, as you say, the letter was ill expressed, be sure it was not mine. For as Aristarchus denies any verse he doesn't like to be Homer's, so pray do you (excuse the joke) consider nothing that is ill expressed to be mine. Farewell, and in your censorship, if you are now censor, as I hope you are, think often of your ancestor.

§ Fam.15.5  CCLXV (Fam. XV, 5) M. PORCIUS CATO TO CICERO (IN CILICIA) ROME (JUNE) I gladly obey the call of the state and of our friendship, in rejoicing that your virtue, integrity, and energy, already known at home in a most important crisis, when you were a civilian, should be maintained abroad with the same painstaking care now that you have military command. Therefore what I could conscientiously do in setting forth in laudatory terms that the province had been defended by your wisdom; that the kingdom of Ariobarzanes, as well as the king himself, had been preserved; and that the feelings of the allies had been won back to loyalty to our empire — that I have done by speech and vote. That a thanksgiving was decreed I am glad, if you prefer our thanking the gods rather than giving you the credit for a success which has been in no respect left to chance, but has been secured for the Republic by your own eminent prudence and self-control. But if you think a thanksgiving to be a presumption in favour of a triumph, and therefore prefer fortune having the credit rather than yourself, let me remind you that a triumph does not always follow a thanksgiving; and that it is an honour much more brilliant than a triumph for the senate to declare its opinion, that a province has been retained rather by the uprightness and mildness of its governor, than by the strength of an army or the favour of heaven: and that is what I meant to express by my vote. And I write this to you at greater length than I usually do write, because I wish above all things that you should think of me as taking pains to convince you, both that I have wished for you what I believed to be for your highest honour, and am glad that you have got what you preferred to it. Farewell: continue to love me; and by the way you conduct your home-journey, secure to the allies and the Republic the advantages of your integrity and energy.

§ Fam.8.11  CCLXVI (Fam. VIII, 11) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN CILICIA) ROME, JUNE: Your "thanksgiving" has given us some sharp twinges, though they have not lasted long: for we came to a serious deadlock. The fact is, Curio, who is very fond of you, finding that every device was being employed to deprive him of comitial days, declared that nothing would induce him to allow the thanksgiving to pass the senate, lest he should appear to have thrown away by his own blundering the advantage he had obtained by the infatuation of Paullus, and should be regarded as having sold the cause of the Republic. Accordingly, we have had to adopt a compromise, and the consuls have pledged themselves not to hold the thanksgiving this year. Plainly you have reason to thank both consuls: Paullus certainly the rather of the two. For Marcellus answered him that he did not build much on those thanksgivings; Paullus said that in any case he would not hold them this year. I was told that Hirrus meant to talk out the decree. I got hold of him: he not only did not do so, but when the vote for the victims was brought forward, and he could have put a spoke in our wheel, if he had called for a count, he held his tongue. He merely signified his agreement with Cato, who, while speaking of you in complimentary terms, voted against the thanksgiving. Favonius made a third with them. Wherefore you must thank everybody according to his peculiar idiosyncrasy and principles: these three, because they only showed their wishes instead of making speeches, and because when they might have hindered they showed no fight; and Curio, because he deviated from his own line of obstructive policy for your sake. For Furnius and Lentulus, as in duty bound, just as though they were personally affected, went round with me and took trouble in the matter. I can also speak in high terms of the exertions and earnestness of Cornelius Balbus. For he both spoke in strong terms to Curio, saying that, if he acted otherwise, he would be inflicting an injury on Caesar, and also managed to create a feeling of mistrust as to Curio's sincerity. Some voted for the decree who really wished for a decision unfavourable to you — such as the Domitii, the Scipios; and when they interposed in this matter with the design of provoking his veto, Curio made a very neat reply. "He was all the more happy," he said, "not to veto the decree, because he saw that certain persons who voted for it did not wish it carried." As for politics, every controversy centres on one point — the provinces. In this matter Pompey as yet seems to have thrown all his weight on the side of the senate's wish that Caesar should leave his province on the 13th of November. when it was held, or whether it was held at all, and he would be influenced by the convenience of public business. Curio is resolved to submit to anything rather than allow this: he has given up all his other proposals. Our people, whom you know so well, do not venture to push matters to extremes. The situation turns entirely on this: Pompey, professing not to be attacking Caesar, but to be making an arrangement which he considers fair to him, says that Curio is deliberately seeking pretexts for strife. However, he is strongly against, and evidently alarmed at, the idea of Caesar becoming consul-designate before handing over his army and province. He is being attacked with some violence, and his whole second consulship is being roughly criticised by Curio. Mark my words — if they push their suppression of Curio to extremes, Caesar will interpose in favour of the vetoing tribune; if, as it seems they will do, they shrink from this, Caesar will stay in his province as long as he chooses. The vote given by each is in the memorandum of city events from which pick out what is worth reading: skip much, especially the hissing at the games and accounts of funerals and other unimportant gossip. It has a good deal worth knowing. The fact is, I prefer erring on the side of telling what you don't want, to passing over anything necessary. I am glad that you have interested yourself in the business of Sittius. But since you suspect the men I sent to you of being of doubtful fidelity, please act as my agent yourself.

§ Fam.8.13  CCLXX (Fam. VIII, 13) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN CILICIA) ROME (JUNE) I CONGRATULATE YOU on a son-in-law who is, on my word, the best of men: for that is my opinion of him. Some other blemishes in his character, by which he has hitherto stood in his own light, are already shaken off by age; and, if any remain, I feel sure that they will be quickly removed by your society and influence, and by the modesty of Tullia. For he is not obstinate in vice, nor blunted beyond the power of understanding the higher life. Last, but not least, I am very fond of him. You will be eager, my dear Cicero, to hear that our friend Curio had a fine conclusion to his veto of the decrees concerning the provinces. For on a motion in regard to the veto being brought before the house — a motion ordered by decree of the senate — and when M. Marcellus had proposed that the tribunes should be remonstrated with, a full senate voted a direct negative. The fact is that Pompey is now so out of sorts, that he can scarcely find anything to suit him. They have come round to this — that Caesar is to be allowed to stand for the consulship without giving up army or provinces. How Pompey is likely to endure this I will write you word as soon as I know. What is to happen to the Republic, if lie resists this in arms or ignores it, that will be the concern of you rich seniors. At the moment of my writing Hortensius is dying.

§ Fam.2.17  CCLXXI (Fam. II, 17) TO GNAEUS SALLUSTIUS (PROQUAESTOR IN SYRIA) TARSUS, 18 JULY: Your orderly delivered me your letter at Tarsus on the 17th of July, and I will now proceed to answer it, as I perceive is your wish, in detail. About my successor I have heard nothing, and I don't think there will be one. There is no reason for my not leaving the province to the day, especially as all fear from the Parthians is removed. I am strongly inclined to stop nowhere. I think I shall go to Rhodes for the sake of the boys, but of even that I am not certain. I wish to arrive outside the city as soon as possible, yet the course of politics and events in Rome will guide the course of my journey. Your successor cannot in any case make such haste as to enable you to meet me in Asia. As to delivering the copies of accounts, your non-delivery of them, for which you say Bibulus gave you licence, is no inconvenience to me: but I scarcely think you are justified in so doing by the Julian law, which Bibulus disregards on a certain settled principle, but which I think you ought certainly to observe. You say that the garrison ought not to have been withdrawn from Apamea; I see that others think the same, and I am much annoyed that rather unpleasant remarks have been made by my ill-wishers. As to whether the Parthians have crossed or not I perceive that you are the only man who has any doubt. Accordingly, all the garrisons, which I had raised to a state of great effectiveness I have been induced by the positive assertions I hear made to dismiss. As to my quaestor's accounts, it was neither reasonable that I should send them to you, nor were they then made up. I think of depositing them at Apamea. Of the booty taken by me no one, except the quaestors of the city — that is, the Roman people — has touched or will touch a farthing. At Laodicea I think I shall accept sureties for all public money, so that both I and the people may be insured against loss in transit. As to what you say about the 100,000 drachmae, in a matter of that kind no concession to anyone is possible on my part. For every sum of money is either treated as booty, in which case it is administered by the praefecti or it is paid over to me, in which case it is administered by the quaestor. You ask me what my opinion is as to the legions which the senate has ordered for Syria. I had my doubts before about their coming; now I feel no doubt, if news is received in time of there being peace in Syria, that they will not come. I see that Marius, the successor to the province, will be slow in coming precisely because the Senate has decreed that he should accompany the legions. There's the answer to one letter. Now for the second. You ask me to recommend you as earnestly as possible to Bibulus. In this matter inclination on my part is not wanting, but it seems to me to be a proper opportunity for expostulating with you: for you are the only man of all Bibulus's staff who never informed me of his complete and causeless alienation from me. For a number of people reported to me that, when there was a great alarm at Antioch, and great hopes were entertained of me and my army, he was accustomed to say that they would prefer to endure any-thing rather than be thought to have wanted my help. I am not at all annoyed that, from the loyalty due from a quaestor to his praetor, you say nothing of this: although I was informed of the treatment you are receiving. He, for his part, when writing to Thermus about the Parthian war, never sent me a line, though he knew that the danger from that war specially affected me. The only subject on which he wrote to me was the augurship of his son: in regard to which I was induced by compassion, and by the friendly feelings I had always entertained to Bibulus, to be at the pains of writing to him with the greatest cordiality. If he is universally ill-natured — which I never thought — I am the less offended by his conduct to me: but if he is on special bad terms with me, a letter from me will do you no good. For instance, in his despatch to the senate, Bibulus took the whole credit for matters in which we both had a share. He says in it that he had secured that the rate of exchange should be to the public advantage. Again — and this is wholly my doing — the declining to employ Transpadane auxiliaries he mentions as a concession of his own, also to the profit of the people. On the other hand, when a thing is entirely his own doing, he brings me into it: "When WE demanded more corn for the auxiliary cavalry" he writes. Surely, again, it is the mark of a small mind, and one which from sheer ill-nature is poor and mean, that because the senate conferred the title of king on Ariobarzanes through me, and commended him to me, he in his despatch does not call him king, but the "son of king Ariobarzanes." Men of this temper are all the worse if favours are asked of them. Nevertheless, I have yielded to your wish, and have written him a letter, with which you can do what you like when you have received it.

§ Fam.2.15  CCLXXII (Fam. II, 15) TO M. CAELIUS RUFUS (AT ROME) (ASIA) AUGUST: NOTHING could have been more correct or wise than your dealings with Curio as to my supplicatio: and, by Hercules, the business was settled exactly as I wished, both from its speed and because the person whom it irritated — the rival, I mean, of us both — voted with the man who complimented my achievements in terms of extraordinary praise. Wherefore let me tell you I have hopes of the next step: so be prepared for it. I am glad in the first place to hear your compliments to Dolabella, and in the second place to find that you like him. For what you say of the possibility of his being reformed by Tullia's good sense, I know to what letter of your own it is an answer. What if you were to read the letter which I wrote to Appius at the time after reading yours? But what would you have? It is the way of the world. What is done is done, and heaven prosper it! I hope I shall find him an agreeable son-in-law, and in that respect your kindness will be of much assistance. Politics make me very anxious. I am fond of Curio: I wish Caesar to show himself an honest man: I could die for Pompey: but after all nothing is dearer in my sight than the Republic itself. In this you are not making yourself very Conspicuous, for you seem to me to have your hands tied — by being at once a good citizen and a good friend. On quitting my province, I have put my quaestor Caelius in command. "A mere boy," say you. Yes, but a quaestor, a young man of high rank, and in accordance with nearly universal precedent: for there was no one who had held higher office for me to put in that position. Pomptinus had departed long ago: my brother Quintus could not be induced: moreover, if I had left him, enemies would have said that I had not really left the province at the end of a year, in accordance with the decree of the senate, since I left a second self behind me. Perhaps they might even have added, that the senate had ordered that those should govern provinces who had not done so before; whereas my brother had governed Asia for three years. In fine, I have now no anxieties: if I had left my brother behind, I should have been afraid of everything. Lastly, not so much of my own initiative, as following the precedent set by the two most powerful men of the day, who have secured the allegiance of all the Cassii and Antonii, I have not so much been desirous to attract a young man to myself, as unwilling to repel him You must needs praise this policy of mine: for it cannot now be changed. You did not write clearly enough to me about Ocella, and it was not mentioned in the gazette. Your doings are so well known, that even on the other side of Mount Taurus the story of Matrinius was heard. Unless the Etesian winds delay me, I shall, I hope, see you before long.

§ Fam.15.11  CCLXXIII (Fam. XV, 11) TO C. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (CONSUL) (ASIA, AUGUST) How much trouble you have taken as to the honour to be bestowed on me, and how far your conduct as consul in complimenting me and promoting my dignity has been exactly the same as — in common with your ancestors and your whole family — it had always been before, though facts spoke for themselves, I have nevertheless been informed by letters from all my friends. Accordingly, there is no service so great that I am not bound and fully purposed zealously and gladly to do in your interests. For it makes a great difference who the man is to whom one is under an obligation: but there is no one to whom I preferred to be under an obligation before yourself, to whom, while common interests and kindnesses received both from your father and yourself had already closely united me, there is now added what in my opinion is the strongest bond of all, the fact that your present and past administration of the Republic (the thing dearest to me in the world) is of such a nature, that I cannot disown an obligation to you in my single person as great as that which all loyalists put together owe you. Wherefore I wish you the success which you deserve, and which I feel confident you will have. Unless my voyage, which falls in precisely with the Etesian winds, delays me, I hope to see you shortly.

§ Fam.3.12  CCLXXIV (Fam. III, 12) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME) SIDA, 3 AUGUST: I WILL first congratulate you — for that is what the order of events demands: and then I will speak of myself. I do warmly congratulate you on the result of the trial for bribery, and not on what nobody ever had any doubt about — your acquittal — but on the fact which, the better citizen, the more illustrious man, the more loyal friend you are, the greater the marks of virtue and industry distinguishing you, is the more to be wondered at, namely, that no secret ill-will was found lurking even in the concealment of the ballot bold enough to attack you. It is a fact scarcely consistent with the circumstances, the men, and the morals of our day. I have not been so much struck by anything for a long time past. Now as to myself — for a moment put yourself in my place, and imagine yourself to be just what I am. If you have no difficulty in finding something to say, don't excuse my hesitation. I, indeed, would hope for myself and my Tullia, as you most kindly and politely express your wishes, that what has been done by my family without my knowledge may turn out to our happiness. But that the marriage happened to take place at that particular time — I hope and desire that it may not be wholly without happiness, yet after all it is your wisdom and kindness which gives me more ground for that hope than the opportuneness of it. Accordingly, I cannot think how to end what I have begun to say; for I ought not to make any gloomy remark on an event which you honour with your felicitations, and yet after all there is something in it which stings me. But in this matter there is one thing of which I am not afraid of your not being fully aware that what was done was done by others, to whom I have left a charge that during my absence they should not refer to me, but should act on their own judgment. Here I am met by the question, "What would you have done if you had been at home?" I should have approved of the match; as to the time, I should have done nothing without your consent, or without consulting you. You see how I have all this time been sweating under the hard task of finding how to maintain what I am bound to maintain, and yet not offend you. Relieve me, then, of this burden: for I think I have never handled a more difficult cause. Be sure of this in any case: had I not at that very time already completed the whole business with the greatest zeal for the maintenance of your highest reputation — although I think my old affection for you admits of no addition — yet when this marriage was announced to me, I should have defended your honour, not indeed with greater zeal, but more keenly, openly, and markedly. On my way from my province, after the conclusion of my year of command, as I was approaching Sida on board ship, accompanied by Q. Servilius, a letter from home was delivered to me on the 3rd of August. I at once told Servilius — for he seemed somewhat put out — that he might expect greater exertions on my part in all ways. In short: I have not become at all better disposed to you than I was, but I have become much more energetic in declaring my good disposition. For as our old difference made me more on my guard against giving any ground for thinking our reconciliation feigned, so this new marriage connexion gives me fresh anxiety to avoid the appearance of any diminution of my extreme affection for you.

§ Fam.3.13  CCLXXVI (Fam. III, 13) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS PULCHER (AT ROME) ASIA (AUGUST) JUST as though I divined that some day or other I should have to ask for your zealous support, I worked hard for your reputation when the question of your actions was on the tapis. However, I will not disguise the truth: you have given more than you got. For every single person has written to tell me that, not only by the weight of your eloquence and your senatorial vote — which from such a man were quite enough for me — but also by personal exertion, by offer of advice, by coming to my house and calling on my friends, you left nothing, however troublesome, for anyone else to do. All this is a much greater honour to me than the thing itself for which the trouble is being taken. For the outward rewards of virtue many have attained without possessing virtue: but such great zeal from such men as you virtue alone' can secure. Accordingly, I set before my-self as the profit to be derived from our friendship that friendship itself, than which nothing can be more fruitful, especially in those studies to which we have both devoted ourselves. For I profess myself to be both your ally in politics, on which our sentiments agree, and closely united in daily life, which we devote to such accomplishments' and studies. I could have wished that fate had so ordained it that you could value all my family as highly as I do yours. Even as to this, however, I have a sort of intuition which prevents my despairing. But this does not touch you: the burden is wholly mine. I wish you to clearly understand that in this change of circumstances something has been added to my affection towards you — to which no addition seemed possible — rather than anything detracted from it. when I write this I hope you are already censor. My letter is all the shorter and more modest as being addressed to a "director of morals."

§ Fam.15.6  CCLXXVII (Fam. XV, 6) TO M. PORCIUS CATO (AT ROME) (ASIA, SEPTEMBER) RIGHT glad am I to be praised" — says Hector, I think, in Naevius — "by thee, reverend senior, who hast thyself been praised." For certainly praise is sweet that comes from those who themselves have lived in high repute. For myself, there is nothing I should not consider myself to have attained either by the congratulation contained in your letter, or the testimony borne to me in your senatorial speech: and it was at once the highest compliment and the greatest gratification to me, that you willingly conceded to friendship, what you transparently conceded to truth. And if, I don't say all, but if many were Catos in our state — in which it is a matter of wonder that there is even one — what triumphal chariot or laurel should I have compared with praise from you? For in regard to my feelings, and in view of the ideal honesty and subtilty of your judgment, nothing can be more complimentary than the speech of yours, which has been copied for me by my friends. But the reason of my wish, for I will not call it desire, I have explained "to you in a 'former letter. And even if it does not appear to you to be entirely sufficient, it at any rate leads to this conclusion not that the honour is one to excite excessive desire, but yet is one which, if offered by the senate, ought certainly not to be rejected. Now I hope that that House, considering the labours I have undergone on behalf of the state, will not think me undeserving of an honour, especially one that has become a matter of usage. And if this turns out to be so, all I ask of you is that — to use your own most friendly words — since you have paid me what in your judgment is the highest compliment, you will still "be glad" if I have the good fortune to get what I myself have preferred. For I perceive that you have acted, felt, and written in this sense: and the facts themselves show that the compliment paid me of a supplicatio was agreeable to you, since your name appears on the decree: for decrees of the senate of this nature are, I am aware, usually drawn out by the warmest friends of the man concerned in the honour. I shall, I hope, soon see you, and may it be in a better state of political affairs than my fears forbode!

§ Fam.8.12  CCLXXVIII (Fam. VIII, 12) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (ON HIS JOURNEY HOME) ROME, SEPTEMBER: I am ashamed to confess to you and to complain of the injuries done me by Appius — that most ungrateful of men, who begins to hate me because he is under great obligations to me; and since, in his avarice, he could not constrain himself to pay his debt, he has declared a secret war against me, yet not so secret either but that many people reported it to, me, and I myself observed without difficulty that he was harbouring evil thoughts of me. When, however, I discovered that he had been tampering with the college, then that he had been openly colloguing with certain persons, deliberating with L Domitius — at present my bitterest enemy — and expressing a wish to offer this trifling favour to 'Cn. Pompeius, I could not prevail on myself to upbraid him personally, or to beg one, whom I considered owed his life to me, to refrain from injuring me. What, then, could I do? However, I spoke to several of his friends, who were acquainted with my services to him. When I perceived that he did not think me even worth conciliating, I preferred putting myself under an obligation to his colleague — a man very much out of sympathy with me, and not likely to be very well-disposed to me, owing to my friendship with you — rather than endure the sight of that ape. When he ascertained this, he flew into a rage and kept exclaiming that I was looking for an excuse for hostility, in order that, since he had not done what I wanted in regard to the money, I might cover my attack upon him by this show of a personal quarrel. Since then he has not ceased egging on Servius Pola to accuse me, and concerting measures with Domitius. And when they were not successful in securing anyone to accuse me under any law, they wanted me to be attacked under a law which gave them no ground for saying a word. Their impudence was so boundless, that they secured an information being laid against me under the Scantinian law at the very height of the Circensian games, in which I was presiding. Scarcely had Pola got the words out of his mouth, when I laid an information under the same law against the censor Appius. I never saw a more successful stroke. For it has been approved by the people, and not all the lowest of them, to such an extent, that the scandal has given Appius greater pain than the legal proceedings. Besides this, I have started an action for recovering a shrine now within the wails of his house. I am much disturbed by the detention of the slave who takes this letter to you. For since the receipt of your last he has been more than forty days in town. I don't know what to say to you. You know that Domitius dreads the day of election. I am looking forward much to your return and desire to see you as soon as possible. I beg you to feel as much vexed at my wrongs, as you think I ever grieve at, and try to avenge yours.

§ Fam.8.14  CCLXXIX (Fam. VIII, 14) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (ON HIS JOURNEY HOME) ROME, SEPTEMBER: TAKING Arsaces prisoner and storming Seleucia was not worth your missing the spectacle of events which have been going on here. Your eyes would never have ached again, if you had only seen Domitius's look when he lost the election. It was a very full comitia, and the voting was evidently on party lines: a very few voted from motives of personal connexion or obligation. Accordingly, Domitius is most bitterly angry with me. He never hated any one even of his own friends so much as he does me: and all the more so that he thinks the augurship has been snatched from him unfairly, and that I am at the bottom of it. Now he is furious that people are so much rejoiced at his vexation, and that there was only one man more zealous for Antony than I was. For the young Cn. Domitius himself has given notice- of action against the young Cn. Saturninus — who is very unpopular owing to his past life. The trial is now imminent, with good hope, too, of an acquittal, after the acquittal of Sextus Peducaeus. As to high politics — I have often told you in my letters that I see no chance of peace lasting a year; and the nearer the struggle comes, which must come, the clearer does that danger appear. The point, on which the men in power are bound to fight, is this — Cn. Pompeius has made up his mind not to allow C. Caesar to become consul, except on condition of his first handing over his army and provinces: while Caesar is fully persuaded that he cannot be safe if he quits his army. He, however, proposes as a compromise that both should give up their armies. So that mighty love and unpopular union of theirs has not degenerated into mere secret bickering, but is breaking out into open war. Nor can I conceive what line to take in my own conduct — and I feel sure that this doubt will exercise you a good deal also — for between myself and these men there are ties of affection and close connexion, since it is the cause, not the men, that I dislike. I think you are alive to this rule, that men ought in a case of home differences, so long as the contest is carried on constitutionally without an appeal to arms, to follow the party most in the right: when it comes to war and the camp, the stronger party; and to make up one's mind that the safer course is the better. In this quarrel I perceive that Cn. Pompeius has on his side the senate and the iudices: that Caesar will be joined by all whose past life gives them reason to be afraid, or their future no reason to hope: that there is no comparison between their armies. On the whole, there is time enough to weigh the forces of both, and to choose sides. I almost forgot what above everything else I was bound to write to you. Do you know that the censor Appius is doing marvels? Busying himself about statues, pictures, land-owning, and debt with the greatest vigour? He is persuaded that his censorship is a kind of soap or soda. I think he is wrong: while he is meaning to wash off stains, he is really exposing all his veins and vitals. Hurry home, in the name of gods and men! Come as quickly as you can to enjoy a laugh, that a trial under the Scantinian law should be before Drusus, and that Appius should be making regulations about statues and pictures. Believe me, you ought to make haste. Our friend Curio is thought to have acted prudently in his concession as to Pompey's money for his troops. In a word, you want my opinion as to the future. Unless one or the other of these two goes to the Parthian war, I see that a violent quarrel is impending, which the sword and main force will decide. Both are prepared in resolution and forces. If it could only be transacted without extreme danger, fortune is preparing for you a great and enjoyable spectacle.

§ Fam.14.5  CCLXXXII (Fam. XIV, 5) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) ATHENS, 16 OCTOBER: If you and my darling Tullia are well, I and my dearest boy Cicero are so too. On the 14th of October I arrived at Athens, after experiencing unfavourable winds and a slow and unpleasant voyage. As I was disembarking, Acastus met me with letters, the 21st day since his start, which is very active travelling. I received one from you, in which you tell me that you fear your previous letters did not reach me. I got them all: you have shown the greatest energy in writing me full accounts of everything, and I am exceedingly obliged to you. I was not surprised that the letter brought by Acastus was short: for you are expecting me, or rather us, immediately in person: and we are anxious to reach you at the earliest possible time, though I am fully aware to what a state of public affairs I am coming: for the letters brought me by Acastus from many of my friends have shown me that things look warlike, so that when I do arrive I shall not be able to cloak my sentiments. But since there is no shirking fate, I shall make the more haste, that I may consider the whole crisis with greater ease. Pray, as well as your health will permit, come as far as you can to meet me. As to the inheritance from Precius — I am deeply grieved at it, for I loved the man — I wish you to see to this: if the auction takes place before my arrival, let Pomponius, or, if he can't, Camillus act for us. As soon as I am safe at home I will look after the rest of the business myself. But if you have already started from Rome, still see that this arrangement is made. Dearest, sweetest Terentia, as you love me, take care, all of you, of your health. Good-bye.

§ Fam.16.1  CCLXXXIV (Fam. XVI, 1) TO TIRO (ILL AT PATRAE) ON THE VOYAGE FROM PATRAE TO ALYZIA (3 NOVEMBER) GREETINGS to their dear Tiro from Tullius and my son, brother, and nephew. I did not think I should miss you so much, but I really cannot do without you: and though it is of great consequence to securing my triumph that I should arrive at the city wall as early as possible, yet I feel guilty for having left you: but as you seemed to have made up your mind that you quite determined not to sail till you had recovered your strength, I expressed approval of your plan, nor do I now retract it, if you are still of the same way of thinking. If; however, after having taken food, you think you can overtake me, you must decide for yourself. I have sent Mario to you with directions to rejoin me as soon as possible with you, or, if you are still delayed, to return at once. But pray be fully assured of this: if it is compatible with your state of health, my first desire is to have you with me: if; however, you are certain that a short stay at Patrae is necessary for your convalescence, my first desire is that you should be well. If you set sail at once, you will catch us up at Leucas: but if you determine to stay to confirm your health, pray take particular care to secure suitable fellow travelers, weather, and ship. Be especially careful, dear Tiro, as you love me, not to allow Mario's arrival or this letter to influence you. If you do what will best conduce to your recovery, you will be most strictly obeying my wishes. In considering these matters let your own heart be your guide. I miss you: yes! but I also love you, Love prompts the wish to see you in good heath; the other motive would make me wish to see you as soon as possible. The former is therefore to be preferred. Accordingly, let your first care be to get well: of the innumerable services you have done me this will be the most acceptable. 3 November.

§ Fam.16.2  CCLXXXV (Fam. XVI, 2) TO TIRO (AT PATRAE) ALYZIA, 5 NOVEMBER: I cannot express to you in a letter, nor do I wish to do so, what my feelings are. I will merely say, that the greatest possible pleasure both to yourself and me will be to see you as soon as possible in restored health. We arrived at Alyzia on the third day after leaving you. That place is 120 stades south of Leucas. At Leucas I am expecting either to receive you, or a letter from you by the hands of Mario. Let your efforts to be well be as strong as your affection for me, or as you know mine to be for you. 5 November, Alyzia.

§ Fam.16.3  CCLXXXVI (Fam. XVI, 3) TO TIRO (AT PATRAE) ALYZIA, 6 NOVEMBER: AT Alyzia, from which I sent my last letter to you, we have stayed one day, because Quintus had not caught us up. That was the 5th of November. Just as we are starting from thence, before daybreak of the 6th, I despatch this to you. Pray, as you love us all, and especially me, who taught you, get well. I am looking forward with very great anxiety, first of all, of course, for yourself, in default of that for Mario with a letter from you. We are all eager, especially myself, to see you as soon as possible, but only, dear Tiro, if fully recovered. Wherefore don't hurry at all. It will be enough if you are well the day I see you. I can get on without your services. I want you to be well, first of all for your own sake, and then for mine, dear Tiro. Good-bye.

§ Fam.16.4  CCLXXXVII (Fam. XVI, 4) TO TIRO (AT PATRAE) LEUCAS, 7 NOVEMBER: WARMEST greeting from Tullius, his son, brother, and nephew to Tiro. Your letter gave me varied emotions. I was much agitated by the first page, a little cheered by the second. So I am now quite clear that, until you are entirely recovered, you should not risk a journey either by sea or land. I shall see you quite soon enough, if I see you thoroughly restored to health. Yes, what you say in your letter about the doctor being well thought of; I am also told about him. Yet I am far from satisfied with his treatment. For you ought not to have had soup given you when suffering from weak digestion. However, I have written to him with great earnestness, as also to Lyso. To Curius, indeed, that most agreeable, attentive, and kindly of men, I have written at great length. Among other things I have asked him to transfer you from where you are to his own house, if you wished it. For I fear our friend Lyso is somewhat careless: first, because all Greeks are so, and secondly because, though he got a letter from me, he has sent me no answer. However, you speak well of him: you must therefore yourself decide what is best to be done. I do beg you, dear Tiro, not to spare expense in anything whatever necessary for your health. I have written to Curius to honour your draft to any amount: something, I think, ought to be paid to the doctor himself to make him more zealous. Your services to me are past counting — at home, in the forum, at Rome, in my province: in private and public business, in my literary studies and compositions. But there is one service you can render me that will surpass them all-gratify my hopes by appearing before me well and strong! I think, if you are recovered, you will have a most charming voyage home with the quaestor Mescinius. He is not without culture, and is, I thought, attached to you. And while health should be your first and most careful consideration, consider also bow to secure a safe voyage, dear Tiro. I wouldn't have you hurry yourself now in any way whatever. I care for nothing but your safety. Be assured, dear Tiro, that no one loves me without loving you; and though it is you and I who are most directly concerned in your recovery, yet it is an object of anxiety to many. Up to this time, in your desire never to leave me in the lurch, you have never had the opportunity of getting strong. Now there is nothing to hinder you: throw everything aside, be a slave to your body. I shall consider the amount of attention you pay to your health the measure of your regard for me. Good-bye, dear Tiro, good-bye good-bye, and good health to you! Lepta and all the rest send their kind regards. Good-bye! Leucas, 7 November.

§ Fam.16.5  CCLXXXVIII (Fam. XVI, 5) TO TIRO (AT PATRAE) OFF LEUCAS, 7 NOVEMBER: Tullius and his son, Quintus and his son, send warm greetings to Tiro, gentlest and best of men. See what a fascination you possess! We have been two hours at Thyreum. My host Xenomenes is as fond of you as if he had been brought up with you. He has promised to supply you with everything you want: I think he will do so. I should like him, if you are better, to transport you to Leucas, that you might complete your cure there. See what Curius, Lyso, and the doctor think of it. I intended to send Mario back to you, that you might despatch him to me when you were a little better: but I reflected that Mario could only bring me one letter, while I was anxious for several. So you will be able (and pray do so, if you love me) to make Acastus go down to the harbour every day: there will be plenty of people to whom you may safely intrust a letter, and who will be pleased to convey it to me. For my part, I will not omit anyone who is going to Patrae. I place all my reliance for your proper treatment on Curius. Nothing can be kinder than he is, or more attached to me. Put yourself entirely in his hands. I would rather see you a little later strong and well, than at once in a feeble state. Devote yourself, therefore, exclusively to getting well. I will look after everything else. Good-bye again and again. Just starting from Leucas, 7 November.

§ Fam.16.6  CCLXXXIX (Fam. XVI, 6) TO TIRO (AT PATRAE) ACTIUM, 7 NOVEMBER: Tullius and his son, Quintus and his son, send warm greetings to Tiro. I write this letter, the third I have written to you the same day, rather in maintenance of my rule, having found some one to whom to give it, than because I have anything to say. The upshot is this: let your attention to yourself be as great as your affection for me. To your innumerable services to me add this, which will be more acceptable to me than them all. When you have taken, as I hope, full account of your health, then see about your voyage also. Send a letter to me by everyone who is going to Italy, and I will not pass over anyone going to Patrae. Take care, good care of yourself, dear Tiro. Since you missed the chance of sailing with me, there is no reason for your being in a hurry or taking thought for anything except getting well. Good-bye! good-bye! Actium, 7 November (evening).

§ Fam.16.7  CCXC (Fam. XVI, 7) TO TIRO (AT PATRAE) CORCYRA, 16 NOVEMBER: Cicero and his son greet Tiro. This is the seventh day of my detention at Corcyra, while Quintus — father and son — are at Buthrotum. I am wonderfully anxious about your health. But I am not surprised at getting no letter from you; for a voyage from your present residence requires winds, such that, if they were blowing now, we should not be loitering at Corcyra. So then take care of yourself and get strong, and, as soon as your health and the time of year allow of your sailing without discomfort, come to us who love you dearly. No one loves us without having a regard for you. Your arrival is eagerly expected, and you will find an affectionate welcome from everyone. Take care of your health. Again and again, dear Tiro, good-bye! Corcyra, 16 November.

§ Fam.16.9  CCXCI (Fam. XVI, 9) TO TIRO (AT PATRAE) BRUNDISIUM, 26 NOVEMBER: CICERO and his son greet Tiro warmly. We parted from you, as you know, on the 2nd of November. We arrived at Leucas on the 6th of November, on the 7th at Actium. There we were detained till the 8th by a storm. Thence on the 9th we arrived at Corcyra after a charming voyage. At Corcyra we were detained by bad weather till the 15th. On the 16th we continued our voyage to Cassiope, a harbour of Corcyra, a distance of 120 stades. There we were detained by winds until the 22nd. Many of those who in this interval impatiently attempted the crossing suffered shipwreck. On the 22nd, after dinner, we weighed anchor. Thence with a very gentle south wind and a clear sky, in the course of that night and the next day we arrived in high spirits on Italian soil at Hydrus, and with the same wind next day — that is, the 24th of November — at 10 o'clock in the morning we reached Brundisium, and exactly at the same time as ourselves Terentia (who values you very highly) made her entrance into the town. On the 26th, at Brundisium, a slave of Cn. Plancius at length delivered to me the ardently expected letter from you, dated the 13th of November. It greatly lightened my anxiety: would that it had entirely removed it! However, the physician Asclapo positively asserts that you will shortly be well. What need is there for me at this time of day to exhort you to take every means to re-establish your health? I know your good sense, temperate habits, and affection for me: I am sure you will do everything you can to join me as soon as possible. But though I wish this, I would not have you hurry yourself in any way. I could have wished you had shirked Lyso's concert, for fear of incurring a fourth fit of your seven-day fever. But since you have preferred to consult your politeness rather than your health, be careful for the future. I have sent orders to Curius for a douceur to be given to the physician, and that he should advance you whatever you want, engaging to pay the money to any agent he may name. I am leaving a horse and mule for you at Brundisium. At Rome I fear that the 1st of January will be the beginning of serious disturbances. I shall take a moderate line in all respects. It only remains to beg and entreat you not to set sail rashly-seamen are wont to hurry things for their own profit: be cautious, my dear Tiro: you have a wide and difficult sea before you. If you can, start with Mescinius; he is usually cautious about a sea passage: if not, travel with some man of rank, whose position may give him influence over the ship-owner. If you take every precaution in this matter and present yourself to us safe and sound, I shall want nothing more of you. Good-bye, again and again, dear Tiro! I am writing with the greatest earnestness about you to the physician, to Curius, and to Lyso. Good-bye, and God bless you.

§ Fam.16.11  CCC (Fam. XVI, 11) TO TIRO (AT PATRAE) OUTSIDE ROME, 12 JANUARY: CICERO and his son, Terentia, Tullia, Quintus and his son, send warm greetings to Tiro. Though I miss your ever-ready help at every turn yet it is not for my sake so much as for yours that I grieve at your illness. But now that the violence of your disease has abated so far as to become a quartan fever — for so Curius writes me word — I hope that with care you will soon become stronger. Only be sure — as becomes a man of your good sense — to think of nothing for the present except how to get well in the best possible way. I know how your regret at being absent worries you, but all difficulties will disappear, if you get well. I would not have you hurry, for fear of your suffering from sea-sickness in your weak state, and finding a winter voyage dangerous. I arrived at the city walls on the 4th of January. Nothing could be more complimentary than the procession that came out to meet me; but I found things in a blaze of civil discord, or rather civil war. I desired to find a cure for this, and, as I think, could have done so; but I was hindered by the passions of particular persons, for on both sides there are those who desire to fight. The long and short of it is that Caesar himself — once our friend — has sent the senate a menacing and offensive despatch, and is so insolent as to retain his army and province in spite of the senate, and my old friend Curio is backing him up. Farthermore, our friend Antonius and Q. Cassius, having been expelled from the house, though without any violence, left town with Curio to join Caesar, directly the senate had passed the decree ordering "consuls, praetors, tribunes, and us proconsuls to see that the Republic received no damage." Never has the state been in greater danger: never have disloyal citizens had a better prepared leader. On the whole, however, preparations are being pushed on with very great activity on our side also. This is being done by the influence and energy of our friend Pompey, who now, when it is too late, begins to fear Caesar. In spite of these exciting incidents, a full meeting of the senate clamoured for a triumph being granted me: but the consul Lentulus, in order to enhance his service to me, said that as soon as he had taken the measures necessary for the public safety, he would bring forward a motion on the subject. I do nothing in a spirit of selfish ambition, and consequently my influence is all the greater. Italy has been marked out into districts, showing for what part each of us is to be responsible. I have taken Capua. That is all I wanted to tell you. Again and again I urge you to take care of your health, and to write to me as often as you have anyone to whom to give a letter. Good-bye, good-bye 12 January.

§ Fam.5.20  CCCI (Fam. V, 20) TO MESCINIUS RUFUS OUTSIDE ROME (JANUARY) I would have done my very best to meet you, if you had chosen to come to the place arranged. Wherefore, although from regard to my convenience you were unwilling to disturb me, I should wish you to believe that, if you had sent me word, I should have preferred your wish to my own convenience. In reply to your letter, I Should have been able to write to you on the details more conveniently, if my secretary, M. Tullius, had been with me. lie, I feel certain, at any rate in making up the accounts — I cannot speak of other things-did not knowingly do anything adverse to your interest or your reputation. And in the next place I can assure you that, if the old rule and ancient custom as to giving in accounts had been in force, I should never have given them in until I had first checked and made them up with you, as our close official connexion demanded. What I should have done outside Rome, had the old custom remained in force, that I did in the province, because, by the Julian law, it was necessary to leave accounts in the province and to give in a verbatim copy of them at the treasury. I did not do this with a view of forcing you to adopt my calculation; but I put a great confidence in you, and shall never be sorry that I did so. For I handed over my secretary to your entire control — of whom I now see that you entertain suspicions — and you joined your brother M. Mindius with him in the business. The accounts were made up, in my absence, under your eye, to which I did nothing whatever beyond reading them. When I received a copy from my secretary, I regarded it as received from your brother. If that was a compliment, I could not pay you a greater one: if it was an instance of confidence, I have shown you almost more than I showed myself: if my duty had been to see that nothing was entered in them that was not for your honour and advantage, there was no one to whom I could have intrusted them in preference to the man to whom I did do so. At any rate, I merely obeyed the law by depositing copies of the accounts made up and audited in two cities, Laodicea and Apamea, which I regarded as the two chief cities (for it had to be the chief cities). So then to this point my first reply is that, though for good and sufficient reasons I have made haste to give in the accounts at the treasury, yet I should have waited for you, had I not considered that depositing the accounts in the province was tantamount to giving them in at the treasury. As to what you say of Volusius, that has nothing to do with the accounts. I have been advised by experts-among them by C Camillus, the best lawyer of the day and a very kind friend of mine — that the debt (the amount was not 3,000 sestertia, as you say, but 1,900) could not be transferred from Valerius to Volusius, and that the sureties of Valerius were liable. For a sum of money had been paid us in the name of Valerius as purchaser: the balance I entered in the accounts. But your proposal robs me of the fruit of my liberality, of my activity, and even (what, after all, I do not much care about) of a moderate amount of good sense: of my liberality, because you prefer to suppose my legate and my prefect, Q. Lepta, to have been relieved from a most serious calamity by the good offices of my secretary rather than of myself, and that though they ought never to have been made liable: of my activity, because you suppose that in regard to so important a duty, I may say so grave a danger, I neither knew anything nor took any thought — that my secretary made any entry he chose without even going through the form of reading it over to me: of my good sense, because you think that an arrangement, which had been thought out by me with no little acuteness, had been practically not thought of at all. The fact of the matter is that the release of Volusius was my own design, and I also formed the plan for relieving the securities of Valerius and Tit. Marius himself from so heavy a loss. And this scheme has not only the approval of everybody, but their warm commendation, and, if you wish to know the real truth, I perceived that my secretary was the one person who did not like it. But it was my view that, so long as the People got its own, a good man should consult for the interests of so large a number-whether of friends or fellow citizens. As regards Lucceius, the arrangement Come to, at the suggestion of Pompey, was that the money should be deposited in a temple. I acknowledged that as having been done on my order. This money Pompey has employed, as Sestius did that deposited by you. But this, I am aware, does not affect you. I should have been sorry to have omitted to record your having deposited the money in the temple on my order, had not that sum been attested by records of the most solemn and precise nature — stating to whom it was paid, by what decree of the senate, and in virtue of what written order from you and from myself it had been handed over to P. Sestius. Seeing that these facts had been put on record in so many ways, that a mistake in regard to them was impossible, I did not make an entry, which after all had no reference to you. However, I wish now I had made the entry, since I see that you regret its not having been done. I quite agree as to your being obliged, as you Say, to enter this transaction, and your balance will not differ at all from mine by your doing so. You may add also, "on my authority," which, though I did not add it, I have no reason for denying, nor should deny, had there been any such reason, and had you declined to add it. Again, as to the sum of 900,000 sesterces: that, at any rate, was entered in accordance with your own or your brother's wishes. However, if there is any entry (for the posting of the public ledger is not Completed) which I can correct even now in my accounts, I must consider — since I have not taken advantage of the decree of the senate — what grace the laws allow me. Anyhow, you were not bound to make the entry you have made in regard to the amount collected tally with my accounts, unless I am mistaken-for there are others with more technical knowledge than myself. But pray do not doubt my doing everything that I think to be for your interests or in accordance with your wish, if I possibly can. As to what you say about the list for good-service rewards, you must know that I have returned the names of my military tribunes and prefects, and the members of the staff — at least of my own staff. In this matter, indeed, I made a mistake. I thought that the time allowed me for giving in their names was unlimited: I was afterwards in-formed that it had to be done within thirty days of handing in my accounts. I am very sorry that this list for good-service rewards was not reserved to enhance your credit rather than mine, since I have no promotion to work for. However, in regard to the centurions and the subalterns of the military tribunes, nothing has yet been done, for good-service rewards of that class have no time limit by law. The last item is the 100,000 sesterces, in regard to which I remember receiving a letter from you from Myrina acknowledging the mistake to be not mine, but yours. The mistake — if mistake it was — appeared to have originated with your brother and Tullius. But since it could not be corrected — for I had already deposited my accounts and quitted my province — I believe I answered you as politely as the warmth of my feelings dictated and my financial outlook at the time allowed. But I did not either then consider that I was bound by the polite tone of my letter, nor do I now think that I was bound to have regarded your letter about the 100 sestertia in the light in which men regard dunning letters received in times like these. At the same time you ought to take this into consideration. The whole sum of money legally coming to me I deposited with the publicani at Ephesus. It amounted to 2,200,000 sesterces. The whole of it has been appropriated by Pompey. Whether I submit to that with patience or the reverse, you at least ought to take the loss of 100 sestertia with equanimity, and to reckon that just so much the less has come into your pocket from your own allowances or my liberality. But even if you had debited me with this 100 sestertia, yet your kindness and affection for me is such that you would not wish to distrain on me at such a time as this: for, however much I wished the money paid in cash, I have not the wherewithal. But regard this as a joke, just as I do what you said. However, as soon as Tullius comes back from the country, I will send him to you, if you think that will be any good. I have no reason for wishing this letter not to be torn up.

§ Fam.14.18  CCCV (Fam. XIV, 18) TO TERENTIA AND TULLIA (AT ROME) FORMIAE, 22 JANUARY: TULLIUS to his wife, and her father to his dearest daughter, and Cicero to his mother and sister, send warm greetings. I think, my darlings, you should carefully consider and reconsider what to do, whether to stay at Rome, or to join me, or seek some place of safety. This is not a point for my consideration alone, but for yours also. What occurs to me is this: you may be safe at Rome under Dolabella's protection, and that Circumstance may prove serviceable to us in case of any violence or plunder Commencing. But, on the other hand, I am shaken in this idea by seeing that all the loyalists have left Rome and have the ladies of their families with them. Again, the district in which I now am consists of towns and estates also which are in my power, so you could be a good deal with me, and, if you quitted me, Could very conveniently stay in domains belonging to us. I cannot as yet quite make up my mind which of the two is the better course for you to take. Please observe for yourselves what other ladies of your rank are doing, and be careful not to be cut off from the power of leaving town when you do wish to do so. I would have you carefully consider it again and again with each other and with your friends. Tell Philotimus to secure the house with barricades and a watch. Also please organize a regular service of letter-carriers, so that I may hear something from you every day. Above all attend to your health, if you wish me to maintain mine. Formiae, 22 January.

§ Fam.14.14  CCCVII (Fam. XIV, 14) TO TERENTIA AND TULLIA (AT ROME) MINTURNAE, 23 JANUARY: TULLIUS to Terentia, her father to Tullia, his two sweethearts, and Cicero to his excellent mother and darling sister, send warm greetings. If you are well, we are so too. It is now for you to consider, and not for me only, what you must do. If Caesar means to come to Rome in a peaceable manlier, you can stay at home with safety for the present: but if in his madness he is going to give up the city to plunder, I fear Dolabella himself may not be able to protect us sufficiently. Besides, I am alarmed lest we should be cut off from you, so that when you do wish to leave town you may be prevented. There is one other thing, which you are in the best position to observe yourselves-are other ladies of your rank remaining in Rome? If not, it deserves consideration whether you can do so with propriety. As things stand at present indeed, always provided that I am allowed to hold this district, you will be able to stay with me or on one of our estates with the greatest comfort. There is another thing I am afraid of-a want of provisions in the city before long. On these points pray consult with Pomponius, with Camillus, with anybody you think right: above all don't be frightened. Labienus has made things better for us. Piso, too, is helpful in quitting the city and declaring his own son-in-law guilty of treason. Do you, dear hearts, write to me as often as possible, and tell me how you are and what is going on around you. Quintus and his son and Rufus send their love. Good-bye 23 January, Minturnae.

§ Fam.16.12  CCCXI (Fam. XVI, 12) TO TIRO (AT PATRAE) CAPUA, 27 JANUARY: How seriously my personal safety and that of all loyalists is imperilled, as well as that of the whole senate and Republic, you may judge from the fact that we have abandoned our town houses, and the very city itself, to plunder and conflagration. Matters have come to such a pitch that, unless some god or some accident intervenes, we cannot possibly be saved. For my part, ever since I arrived at the city, I have never ceased promoting in thought, word, and deed everything that made for peace: but a strange mad passion for fighting has inflamed not only the disloyal, but even those who are reckoned loyalists, though I loudly proclaim that nothing can be more lamentable than a civil war. Accordingly, when Caesar yielded to the promptings of what may be called downright insanity, and — forgetting his name and his honours — had successively occupied Ariminum, Pisaurum, Ancona, and Arretium, I left the city. On the wisdom or courage of such a step it is useless to argue. You see how we stand now. The upshot is, proposals are received from Caesar that Pompey should go to Spain: that the levies already completed and our garrisons should be disbanded: that he will hand over farther Gaul to Domitius, hither Gaul to Considius Nonianus (these are the men to whom these provinces have been allotted): that he will come to canvass for the consulship, and no longer demand that his candidature be admitted in his absence: that he will be in town as candidate for the legal three nundinae. We accept the proposals, but on the condition that he withdraws his garrisons from the places he has occupied, so that a meeting of the senate may be held at Rome to discuss these same proposals in security. If he does this, there is hope of a peace — not a creditable one, for we accept terms from him, but anything is better than to be as we are. If; on the other hand, he declines to abide by his terms, everything is ready for war, but of a kind that he cannot possibly maintain — especially as he will have shirked terms proposed by himself — provided only that we cut him off from all power of approaching the city. This we hope can be done: for we are holding levies on a large scale, and we think that he is afraid, if he once begins a march upon the city, that he may lose the Gauls, both of which, with the exception of the Transpadani, are bitterly hostile to him: and on the side of Spain he has six legions and a large force of auxiliaries under Afranius and Petreius on his rear. If he persists in his madness it seems possible that he may be crushed — if it can only be done without losing Rome! He has, again, received a very severe blow in the fact that Titus Labienus, who occupied the most influential position in his army, has declined to be a partner in his crime. He has abandoned him and is with us, and many are said to intend doing the same. I as yet am president of the sea-coast from Formiae. I refused any more important function, that my letters and exhortations to peace might have greater influence with Caesar. If; however, war does break out, I see that I shall have to take command of a camp and a definite number of legions. I have another trouble in the fact that my son-in-law Dolabella is with Caesar. I wished you to know these facts, but don't let them agitate you and retard your recovery. I have recommended you with great earnestness to Aulus Varro, whom I know to be warmly attached to me and very fond of you, asking him to interest himself in your health and your voyage, and generally to take you under his charge and look after you. I feel certain he will do all this, for he promised to do so, and spoke to me in the kindest manner. Pray, since you were unable to be with me at the time I most wanted your help and fidelity, do not hurry or allow yourself to embark upon a voyage while ill, or in bad weather. I shall never think you come late if you come well and strong. As yet I have seen no one who had seen you since M. Volusius, who handed me your letter. I don't wonder at this, for I don't think my letters either can reach you in such stormy weather. But do your best to recover, and, when you do recover, only sail when you can do so with safety. My son is at Formiae, Terentia and Tullia at Rome. Take care of yourself. Capua, 27 January.

§ Fam.16.8  CCCXIII (Fam. XVI, 8) Q. CICERO TO TIRO (AT PATRAE) (CAMPANIA, JANUARY) I am very anxious about your health, for though those who come from you announce that your complaint is not dangerous though lingering, yet, consoling as that is, it involves the great anxiety of a prolonged absence from us of one whose usefulness and charm I appreciate by their loss. Yet though I long with my whole heart to see you, I still earnestly beg you not to trust yourself to so long a voyage and a winter journey, unless you are quite strong, and not to set sail at all without careful consideration. Even in houses and towns it is difficult to avoid cold when one is unwell, to say nothing of escaping the inclemency of the weather at sea and on the road. "Cold to the tender skin is deadliest foe," says Euripides. I don't know what you think of him as an authority. I look upon his verses as so many solemn affidavits. If you love me, make sure of your recovery, and come to us well and strong as soon as possible. Love us all, and good-bye. The son of Quintus sends his regards.

§ Fam.8.15  CCCXLIII (Fam. VIII, 15) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (AT FORMIAE) NORTH ITALY, FEBRUARY (LATE) DID you ever see a more futile person than your friend Pompey, for having stirred up all this dust, without any stuff in him, after all? And, on the other hand, did you ever read or hear of anyone prompter in action than our Caesar, and more moderate in victory? Why! Do you think that our soldiers, who in the most inclement and frozen districts, in the severest winter weather, have successfully finished a war at a walk, have been fed on the pick of the orchard? "What, then," say you, "is it all glory with you?" Nay, if you only knew how anxious I am, you would laugh at this glory of mine, which, after all, has nothing to do with me. I can't explain matters to you unless we meet, and I hope that will soon take place. For as soon as he has driven Pompey out of Italy, Caesar has resolved to summon me to Rome: and I look upon that as good as done, unless Pompey has preferred being besieged in Brundisium. Upon my life, the chief motive I have for hurrying there is my ardent desire to see you and impart all my thoughts. And what a lot I have! Goodness! I am afraid that, as usual, I shall forget them all when I do see you. But what have I done to be obliged to retrace my steps to the Alps? It is all because the Intemelli are in arms, and that on some trumpery excuse. Bellienus, a slave of Demetrius, who was commanding a garrison there, seized one Domitius — a man of rank and a friend of Caesar's — for a bribe, and strangled him. The tribe rushed to arms: and I have got to go there with my cohorts over the snow. All over the world, say you, the Domitii are coming to grief. I could have wished that our descendant of Venus had shown as much resolution in the case of your Domitius, as the son of Psecas did in this one. Give my love to your son.

§ 49.350  CCCL (Att. IX, 9a) L. CORNELIUS BALBUS AND GAIUS OPPIUS TO CICERO (AT FORMIAE) ROME, 3 MARCH To say nothing of humble people like ourselves, even in the case of the most important persons designs are generally judged by the majority of mankind by their result, and not their intention: yet, relying on your goodness of heart, we will offer you, on the point as to which you have written to us, the advice which seems to us to be the soundest; and if it is not sensible advice, yet it will at least proceed from absolute good faith and good feeling. If we knew from his own lips that Caesar — as in our judgment we think he should do — would try directly he arrived in Rome to effect a reconciliation between himself and Pompey, we should urge you to resolve upon taking part in the negotiation, in order to facilitate and add an air of dignity to the business through the ties which bind you to both parties. Or if, on the contrary, we thought that Caesar would not do so, and if we knew that he wished to go to war with Pompey, we would never persuade you to bear arms against a man who had done you very great services, just as we have ever begged you not to engage in a war against Caesar. But since, even now, what Caesar intends doing is for us a matter of opinion rather than of knowledge, all we can say is this: we do not think it consistent with your position or your universally acknowledged good faith to bear arms against either one or the other, considering your intimate connexions with both; and we have no doubt that Caesar with his usual kindness, will very warmly approve this course. However, if you wish it, we will write to Caesar, and ask to be informed what he means to do in the circumstances. On receiving an answer from him, we will at once write and tell you what our sentiments are, and will convince you that we give you the advice which seems to us to conduce most to your own position, not to Caesar's policy. And this we feel certain that Caesar, with his usual liberality in making allowance for his friend, will approve.

§ 49.353  CCCLIII (Att. IX, 9b) C. CORNELIUS BALBUS TO CICERO (AT FORMIAE) ROME, 6 MARCH: IF you are well, I am glad. After sending you the letter written in conjunction with Oppius, I have received one from Caesar, of which I am sending you a copy. From this you will be able to see how desirous he is for a reconciliation between himself and Pompey, and how averse from every thought of cruelty. That such are his sentiments I am, as in duty bound, greatly rejoiced. As to yourself, you? good faith, and your piety, I entertain the same opinion as you do yourself, my dear Cicero — that your reputation and duty cannot admit of your bearing arms against a man from whom you avow having received so much kindness. I have full assurance that Caesar, as might be expected from his extraordinary kindness, will approve of this course, and I know for certain that you will satisfy him to the full by undertaking no command in the war against him, and by not associating yourself with his adversaries. And it is not only in the case of a man of such a high position and character as yourself that he will accept this as sufficient, but even in my own case he has volunteered the concession, that I should not serve in any camp that shall, in the future, be opposed to either Lentulus or Pompey, to whom I am under very great obligations; and he has told me that he will be satisfied with my performing civil functions for him, which I am at liberty to perform for them also if I choose. Accordingly, I am now at Rome acting for Lentulus generally, taking his business upon me, and doing for them all that duty, honour, and piety demand. But, by heaven, the hope of their coming to terms, which I had given up, I now think not entirely desperate, since Caesar is minded as we are bound to wish him to be. In the circumstances my opinion is, if you think well, that you should write to him and ask him for protection, as, with my full approbation, you asked it from Pompey at the Milonian crisis. I will engage, if I am right in my judgment of Caesar, that he will take more thought for your dignity than for his own advantage. I am no certain judge of the wisdom of the advice I am now giving you, but at least I am sure that whatever I write to you I write from an uncommon affection and friendly disposition; because upon my life — which I would forfeit to save Caesar — I value you so highly, that I regard few as equally dear as yourself. When you have come to some conclusion on this matter, let me hear from you. For I am uncommonly anxious that you may find it possible to make good your kindly intentions to both sides; which, by heaven, I feel sure you will do. Take care of your health.

§ 49.355  CCCLV (Att. IX, 2a) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) FORMIAE, 8 MARCH: WHAT a difficult, what a hopeless thing! You pass over no point in giving your advice, and yet how completely you fail to reveal what your real opinion is! You are glad that I am not with Pompey, and yet you suggest how discreditable it would be for me to be in the House when any attack is made on him; yet shocking to approve his conduct. Certainly. To speak against him, then? "God forbid !" say you. What, then, is to be done, if the one course is criminal, the other exposed to punishment? "You will obtain permission," say you, "from Caesar to absent yourself and live in retirement." Am I to implore this permission, then? How humiliating! What if I fail to get it? Again, you say, "The question of your triumph will be unprejudiced." What if this very thing is used to put pressure upon me? Should I accept it? What a disgrace! Should I decline it? Caesar will think that I am repudiating his whole policy, as formerly in the case of the land commission. Why, in excusing himself, he always throws the whole blame for what then happened on me, saying that I was so bitterly opposed to him, that I would not accept even an honour at his hands. With how much greater irritation will he take a similar proceeding from me now? It will, of course, be greater in proportion as this honour is greater than the former, and he is himself in a stronger position. But you say that you have no doubt I am in very bad odour with Pompey by this time: I don't see why that should be the case, particularly at this time. Shall a man who never told me anything about his plan, till after he had lost Corfinium, complain of my not having come to Brundisium, when Caesar lay between me and Brundisium? In the next place, complaint on his side he must know to be barred. He considers that I was clearer sighted than he about the weakness of the municipal towns, the levies, the maintenance of peace, the city, money, and the need of occupying Picenum. If, on the other hand, I don't go when it is in my power, he will have some right to be angry with me: and I shrink from that, not for fear of his hurting me — for what could he do? And "Who is a slave who does not fear to die?" But because I have a horror of ingratitude. I feel confident, therefore, that my arrival in his camp, whenever it takes place, will, as you say, be welcome enough. For as to what you say, "If Caesar acts with more moderation you will reconsider your advice to me "- how can he help behaving ruthlessly? Character, previous career, the very nature of his present undertaking, his associates, the strength of the loyalists, or even their firmness, all forbid it. I had scarcely read your letter, when Curtius Postumus called on me as he was hurrying to join Caesar, talking of nothing but fleets and armies — "Caesar was going to seize the Spains, occupy Asia, Sicily, Africa, Sardinia, and was promptly pursuing Pompey into Greece." I must start, therefore, with the view of sharing not so much in a war as in a stampede. For I shall never be able to stand the gossip of your folk at Rome, whatever they are, for loyalists they are not, in spite of their name. Nevertheless, it is precisely that which I want to know — what they say; and I earnestly entreat you to make inquiries and inform me. As yet I am entirely ignorant of what has happened at Brundisium: when I know, I shall shape my plans in the light of facts and circumstances, but I shall consult you.

§ 49.365  CCCLXV (Att. IX, 11a) TO CAESAR (IN APULIA) FORMIAE, 19-20 MARCH: ON reading your letter, handed to me by our friend Furnius, in which you ask me to come to the city walls, I was not so much surprised at your wishing "to avail yourself of my advice and position," but what you meant by speaking of my "influence and assistance" I did ask myself. My thoughts, however, were so far dominated by my hope, that I was induced to think that you wished to consult for the tranquillity, peace, and harmony of our fellow citizens: and for a policy of that kind I regarded both my natural disposition and my public character as sufficiently well adapted. If this is the case, and if you are at all anxious to preserve our common friend Pompey, and to reconcile him to yourself and the Republic, you will assuredly find no one better calculated than myself for supporting such measures. For, as soon as opportunity offered, I pleaded for peace both to him and the senate; nor since the commencement of hostilities have I taken any part whatever in the war; and I have held the opinion that by that war you are being wronged, in that men who were hostile to and jealous of you were striving to prevent your enjoying an office granted you by the favour of the Roman people. But as at that period I was not only personally a supporter of your rights, but also advised everybody else to assist you, so at the present moment I am strongly moved by consideration for the position of Pompey. It is now a good number of years ago since I picked out you two as the special objects of my political devotion, and — as you still are of my warm personal affection. Wherefore I ask you, or rather entreat you, and appeal to you with every form of prayer, that in the midst of your very great preoccupations you would yet spare some part of your time to reflect how by your kindness I may be enabled to do what goodness and gratitude, and, in point of fact, natural affection demand, by remembering the extreme obligation under which I stand. If these considerations only affected myself, I should yet have hoped to secure your assent; but, in my opinion, it concerns both your own honour and the public interest that I-a friend to peace and to you both-should, as far as you are concerned, be maintained in a position best calculated to promote harmony between you and among our fellow citizens. Though I have thanked you before in regard to Lentulus, for saving the man who saved me, yet after reading a letter from him, in which he speaks with the utmost gratitude of your generous treatment and kindness to him, I felt that the safety you gave him was given to me also: and if you perceive my gratitude in his case, pray take means to allow me to show the same in the case of Pompey.

§ 49.369  CCCLXIX (Att. IX, 13a) BALBUS TO CICERO (AT FORMIAE) ROME, 20 MARCH: Caesar has sent me a very short note, of which I append a copy. From the shortness of the letter you will be able to gather that he is much occupied, or he would not have written so briefly on so important a subject. If I get any farther intelligence I will at once write you word. " CAESAR TO OPPIUS AND CORNELIUS On the 9th of March I reached Brundisium. I have pitched my camp under the walls. Pompey is at Brundisium. He sent Numerius Magius to me to negotiate for peace. I answered as I thought right. I wished you to know this at once. As soon as I see any prospect of success in coming to terms, I will at once inform you of it." You can imagine, my dear Cicero, my state of torturing anxiety, after having again conceived some hope of peace, lest any circumstance should prevent their coming to terms. For I earnestly wish it, which is all I can do at this distance. If I were only there, I might perhaps possibly seem of some use in the matter; as it is, I am wracked with anxious suspense.

§ 49.380  CCCLXXX (Att. X, 3a) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) ARCANUM, 7 APRIL: I am dictating this letter on the 7th of April — the second on the same day — and I wrote a longer one the day before with my own hand. They say that you have appeared at the Regia, and I don't blame you, seeing that I have not shrunk from incurring the like criticism. But I await a letter from you. I really don't see now what I have to expect, but nevertheless, even if there is nothing to say, I should like you to write and tell me only that; Caesar writes to say that he excuses my non-appearance, and declares that he doesn't take it at all amiss. I am not disturbed by what he tells me about Tullus and Servius, that they have grumbled at his not having given them the same licence as he did to me Absurd fellows! To send their sons to besiege Gnaeus Pompeius, and then to scruple about coming to the senate themselves. I However, I am sending you a copy of Caesar's letter.

§ Fam.8.16  CCCLXXXII (Fam. VIII, 16) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (AT FORMIAE) ON THE ROAD TO SPAIN, (16) APRIL Being mortally alarmed by your letter, in which you showed that your mind was filled with gloomy ideas, without saying outright what they were, and yet betraying the kind of action which you were contemplating, I write this letter to you on the spot. In the name of your fortunes and your children, my dear Cicero, I beg and beseech you not rashly to imperil your safety and security. I protest in the name of gods and men, and of our friendship, that I told you beforehand, and that my warning was not given inconsiderately, but that after meeting Caesar, and ascertaining what his view would be, if he gained the victory, I informed you of it. If you think that Caesar will maintain the same policy in letting his adversaries go and offering terms, you are mistaken. His thoughts, and even his words, forebode nothing but severity and cruelty. He left town incensed with the senate: he was thoroughly roused by the recent tribunician intercessions: there will be no place, by heaven, for mediation. Wherefore, if you love yourself, if you love your only son, if your family and your remaining hopes are dear to you: if I, or that excellent man your son-in-law, have any influence with you — and you surely ought not to wish to ruin us, in order to force us to choose between loathing and abandoning the cause, on the triumph of which our safety depends, or harbouring an unnatural wish against your safety. Finally consider this: whatever offence your hesitation has caused Pompey you have already incurred; it would be a piece of most consummate folly to act against Caesar now that he is victorious, when you refused to attack him while his fortunes were doubtful — to join the men after they have been driven into flight, whom you refused to follow when they were holding their ground. Take care lest, while feeling ashamed of not being a good enough Optimate, you fail to select the best course for yourself. But if I can't persuade you to take my advice in toto, at least wait till it is known how we get on in the Spanish provinces, which I have to tell you will be ours as soon as Caesar arrives. What hope your people have when the Spains are lost I don't know. Of what, then, you can be thinking to join men in so desperate a position, on my honour, I cannot imagine. What you told me, though not in so many words, Caesar had already heard, and he had scarcely said "good morning!" to me when he mentioned what he had heard about you. I said I did not know anything about it, but yet begged him to write you a letter as the best method of inducing you to stay in the country. He is taking me into Spain with him. For if he were not doing so, before going to Rome, I should have hastened to visit you, wherever you were, and should have pressed this upon you personally, and tried with might and main to keep you from going. Pray, my dear Cicero, reflect again and again, and do not utterly ruin yourself and all your family, nor knowingly, and with your eyes open, put yourself into a situation from which you can see no possible retreat. But if, on the one hand, you are shaken by the remarks of the Optimates, or, on the other, are unable to endure the intemperance and offensive behaviour of certain persons, I think you should select some town not affected by the war, while this controversy is being fought out, which will be settled almost directly. If you do this, you will, in my opinion have acted wisely, and will not offend Caesar.

§ 49.384  CCCLXXXIV (Att. X, 8b) CAESAR TO CICERO (AT FORMIAE) ON THE ROAD TO SPAIN, 16 APRIL: CAESAR imperator greets Cicero imperator. Although I had come to the conclusion that you were not likely to do anything unadvisedly or imprudently, yet, being made anxious by common report, I thought that I ought to write to you and to appeal to you, in the name of our mutual kindness, not to go anywhere now that fortune has declared in my favour, that you had not thought yourself bound to go even when it was still uncertain. For you will have at once committed a somewhat serious offence against our friendship, and have adopted a course far from beneficial to yourself: since you will make it clear that you have not followed fortune — for all the good luck has notoriously been on our side, all the bad on theirs — nor the merits of the cause, for they are the same now as when you judged it best not to assist at their deliberations: but you will show that you have condemned some act of mine, and that is the heaviest blow you can inflict on me. In the name of our friendship, I beg you not to do so. Finally, what can be more becoming to a good man, and a peaceable and quiet citizen, than to hold aloof from civil strife? It is a thing some would have been glad to do, but could not on account of the danger. For yourself, when you have satisfied yourself as to the evidence which my life furnishes, and the decision at which my friendship for you has arrived, you will find nothing at once safer and more honourable than to abstain entirely from active intervention in the fray. On the march, 16 April.

§ Fam.4.1  CCCLXXXVI (Fam. IV, 1) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (AT ROME) CUMAE, APRIL (TOWARDS THE END) Mv intimate friend Gaius Trebatius has written to me to say that you have inquired of him where I was, and that you regretted that, owing to the state of your health, you had not seen me after my arrival at the city walls, and that at the present time you wished, if I came nearer, to consult with me on what was the duty of us both. Oh that it had been possible, Servius, for us to converse before the ruin — that is the word! — had been completed. We should surely have contributed some assistance to the falling Republic. For I am fully informed, though absent myself, that, foreseeing these disasters long before, you were the supporter of peace both during and after your consulship. I, however, though approving your policy and holding the same opinion myself, was unable to do any good. For I arrived late in the day; I was isolated; I was regarded as imperfectly acquainted with the facts: I had suddenly plunged into a scene of mad passion for war. Now, since it seems impossible for us to furnish any support to the Republic, if there is any measure within our power to take in our own particular interests — I don't mean to maintain our old position, but to express our grief in the manner most honourable to ourselves-there is no one in the world with whom I should think it proper to confer in preference to yourself. For you do not forget the examples of the most illustrious men — whom we ought to resemble — nor the maxims of the greatest philosophers, whom you have always worshipped. And, in fact, I should myself have written to you before to warn you that your going to the senate — or rather to the convention of senators — would have no result, had I not been afraid of annoying the man who was urging me to imitate you. Him indeed I gave clearly to understand, when he asked me to attend the senate, that I should say precisely what you said about peace, and about the Spains. You see how the matter stands: the whole world is parcelled out among men in military command, and is ablaze with war: the city, without laws, law courts, justice, or credit, has been abandoned to plunder and fire. Accordingly, nothing occurs to me, I don't say to hope, but scarcely even to venture to wish. If, however, you, in your supreme wisdom, think it of any advantage that we should have a discussion, though I am thinking of going still farther from the city, the very name of which I do not now like to hear mentioned, I will yet come nearer; and I have instructed Trebatius not to decline to bring any message you wished to send me: and I should like you to do so, or to send me any of your own friends that you can trust, so that you may not be obliged to leave the city, or I to approach it. I pay you the same high compliment as I perhaps claim for myself, in feeling sure that whatever we mutually agree upon, will have the approbation of all the world. Farewell.

§ Fam.4.2  CCCLXXXVIII (Fam. IV, 2) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (AT ROME) CUMAE, 28 APRIL: I received your letter on the 28th of April, while at my Cuman villa. As soon as I had read it I perceived that Philotimus, considering that he had, as you say, received verbal instructions from you on every point, had made a great mistake in not having come to me personally, but sending your letter, which I understood to have been the shorter because you had imagined that he would deliver it. However, after I had read your letter, your wife Postumia and our dear Servius called on me. Their opinion was that you should come to Cumae, and they even urged me to write and tell you so. You ask what my advice is: it is of such a nature, that it is easier to adopt it myself than to give it to another. What measure could I venture to urge on a man possessed of your supreme influence and knowledge of affairs? If we ask what is most right, the answer is plain: if what is expedient, it is doubtful. But if we are the men we really ought to be-holding, that is, the faith that nothing is expedient except what is right and virtuous-there can be no doubt as to what we ought to do. You express your opinion that my case is closely connected with yours. Well, at least we both made the same mistake, though with the very best intentions. For both of us continually advised a peaceful solution; and since nothing was more to Caesar's advantage, we thought that we were obliging him by supporting peace. How grossly mistaken we have been, and to what a pass things have come, you now see. Nor do you only perceive what is actually going on and what has gone on, but also what the course of affairs and the ultimate result will be. Therefore you must either approve the measures now being taken, or be a party to them in spite of disapproving them. The one alternative in my eyes is discreditable, the other is dangerous as well. I can only come, therefore, to one conclusion — that I ought to quit the country. All that I have, I think, to consider in so departing is the method to adopt, and the country to which to go. Surely there never were circumstances of greater distress, or even a question more difficult to settle. For no decision is possible that does not fall foul of some great difficulty. For you, my opinion is — if you will agree with me — that, if you have made up your mind as to what you think you ought to do, in a way which separates your plan from mine, you should save yourself the trouble of the journey here but if there is anything you wish to impart to me, I shall expect you. Of course, I should like you to come as soon as you can conveniently to yourself, as I perceived was the wish both of Servius and Postumia. Farewell.

§ Fam.5.19  CCCLXXXIX (Fam. V, 19) TO L. MESCINIUS RUFUS CUMAE, APRIL (END) Though I never doubted your great affection for me, yet I learn it better every day of my life, and I never forget what you once said in a letter, that you would be more zealous in showing me attention than you had been in the province (though, to my mind, nothing could exceed your loyalty in the province), in proportion as your judgment could now be more independent. Accordingly, your former letter gave me great pleasure, because it showed me that my arrival was affectionately looked forward to by you, and that, when things turned out differently from what you had expected, you were greatly rejoiced at the line I took. So, also, this last letter is extremely valuable to me from the expression at once of your judgment and your affection: of your judgment, because I learn that, as all gallant and good men are bound to do, you hold nothing to be expedient except what is right and virtuous; of your affection, because you promise to stand by me, whatever course of policy I shall adopt. Nothing could be more gratifying to me, nor, as I think, more honourable to yourself. My own course has long been decided. I have not written to tell you of it before, not because you were one to be kept in the dark, but because the communication of a policy at such a time seems in a certain sense to be an exhortation to duty, or rather a summons to share in either danger or labour. Seeing, however, that your goodwill, kindness, and affection for me are what they are, I gladly embrace such a heart. But I do so on this condition, for I will not abandon my habitual modesty in asking favours: if you do what you profess, I shall be grateful; if not, I shall pardon you, and consider that you were unable to deny the latter to your fears, the former to me. For it is in sober earnest an extremely difficult case. The right thing to do is clear: as to the expedient thing, though it is obscure, yet, if we are the men we ought to be, that is, worthy of our philosophical studies, we cannot entertain a doubt that the most advantageous course is the course of strictest honour. Wherefore, if you determine to join me, come at once. But if you wish to act with me and to go to the same place, but cannot do so just yet, I will keep you fully informed on every point. Whichever way you decide I shall look upon you as my friend, but as the closest possible friend if you decide on the course which I desire.

§ 49.390  CCCXC (Att. X, 8a) M. ANTONIUS TO CICERO (AT CUMAE) CAMPANIA (END OF APRIL) HAD I not been warmly attached to you — much more warmly, indeed, than you suppose — I should not have been alarmed at the rumour which has reached me about you, especially as I thought it was without foundation. But just because I am so exceedingly devoted to you, I cannot conceal the fact that even a report, however groundless, is a serious thing in my eyes. I cannot believe that you are about to cross the sea, considering how highly you value Dolabella and your dear Tullia, and how highly you are valued by me, to whom, by heaven, your rank and reputation are almost dearer than they are to yourself. Nevertheless, I did not think that it would be friendly in me not to be rendered anxious by the talk even of men of low character. And, indeed, I have been the more zealous, because I considered that I had thrust upon me a somewhat difficult part to play, owing to the misunderstanding between us, which was the result of jealousy on my part rather than of any wrong done me by you. For I want to convince you that no one is dearer to me than you are, except my Caesar, and that my conviction at the same time is that Caesar gives M. Cicero a very high place among his friends. Wherefore, my dear Cicero, I beg you not to take any compromising step; and not to place any reliance on the man who, to do you a favour, first inflicted an injury upon you; and, on the other hand, not to fly from one who, even supposing he loses all affection for you — which is impossible — will yet desire your safety and your highest honour. I have taken pains to send my most intimate friend Calpurnius to you, that you may know that your life and honour are great objects with me.

§ Fam.2.16  CCCXCIII (Fam. II, 16) TO M. CAELIUS RUFUS (IN GAUL) CUMAE (MAY) Your letter would have given me great pain, had it not been that by this time reason itself has dispelled all feelings of annoyance, and had not my mind, from long despair of public safety, become callous to any new sorrow. Nevertheless, I do not know how it happened that you conceived from my former letter the suspicion which you mention in yours. For what did it contain beyond a lamentation over the state of the times, which do not cause me greater anxiety than they do you? For I know the keenness of your intellect too well to suppose that you do not see what I see myself. What surprises me is that, knowing me as thoroughly as you ought to do, you could be induced to think, that I was either so shortsighted as to abandon a fortune in the ascendant for one on the wane and all but entirely sunk; or so inconsistent as to throw away the favour already gained of a man at the height of prosperity, and so be untrue to myself, and — a thing which I have from the beginning and ever since avoided — take part in a civil war. What, then, do you mean by my "lamentable" design? Is it that of retiring, perhaps, to some secluded spot? For you know how it not only turns my stomach — as it used at one time to turn yours also — but sickens my very eyes to see the insolent conduct of mere upstarts. I have the additional gene of the procession of lictors, and the title of imperator, by which I am addressed. If I had been without that burden, I should have been content with any retreat, however humble, in Italy. But these laurelled fasces of mine not only attract the eyes, but now also provoke the remarks of the malevolent. And though that is so, I yet never thought of leaving the country without the approbation of your party. But you know my small estates: I am obliged to stay on them, not to be troublesome to my friends. Now the fact of my finding it pleasantest to reside in my marine villa causes some to suspect me of an intention to embark on a voyage: and, after all, perhaps I should not have been unwilling to do so, had I been able to reach peace: for how could I consistently sail to war: especially against a man who, I hope, has forgiven me, on the side of a man who by this time cannot possibly forgive me? In the next place, you might without any difficulty have understood my feeling at the time of your visit to me in my Cuman villa. For I did not conceal from you what Titus Ampius had said: you saw how I shrank from leaving the city after hearing it. Did I not assure you that I would endure anything rather than quit Italy to take part in a civil war? What, then, has occurred to make me change my resolve? Has not everything been rather in favour of my abiding by my opinion? Pray believe me in this — and I am sure you do think so-that among these miseries I seek for nothing but that people should at length understand that I have preferred peace to everything: that, when that was given up in despair, my first object was to avoid actual civil war. Of this consistent conduct I think I shall never have cause to repent. I remember, for instance, that our friend Q. Hortensius used to plume himself on this particular thing, that he had never taken any part in a civil war. In this matter my credit will be more brilliant, because it was attributed to want of spirit in his case: in mine I do not think that this idea can possibly be entertained. Nor am I terrified by the considerations which you put before me, with the most complete fidelity and affection, with the view of alarming me. For there is no sort of violence that does not seem to be hanging over the heads of all in this world-wide convulsion; and this, indeed, I would with the greatest pleasure have averted from the Republic at the cost of my private and domestic losses, even those against which you bid me be on my guard. To my son, whom I rejoice to see enjoying your affection, I shall leave, if the Republic survives in any shape, a sufficiently noble inheritance in the memory of my name: but if it entirely disappears, nothing will happen to him apart from the rest of the citizens. You ask me to have some regard to my son-in-law-a most excellent young man, and very dear to me: can you doubt, when you know how much I regard both him, and of course my dear Tullia, that this subject gives me the keenest anxiety? The more so, that in the universal disaster I yet used to flatter myself with this little grain of hope, that my, or rather our, Dolabella would be freed from those embarrassments which he had brought upon himself by his own liberality. Pray ask him how he got through the settling days, while he was in the city. How disagreeable they were to him, and how derogatory to myself as his father-in-law! Accordingly, I am neither waiting for the result of the Spanish campaign, as to which I am fully convinced that the truth is as you say, nor am I meditating any astute policy. If there is ever to be a state, there will be doubtless a place for me: but if there is not, you will yourself, as I think, make for the same lonely retreats in which you will hear that I have taken up my abode. But perhaps I am talking wildly, and all these troubles will end better. For I remember the expressions of despair among those who were old men when I was a youth: perhaps I am now imitating them, and indulging in the usual weakness of my time of life. I wish it may be so. But nevertheless!-I suppose you have heard that a purple-bordered toga is being woven for Oppius. For our friend Curtius thinks of a double-dyed one: but the hand that should dye it keeps him waiting. I put in this seasoning of joke to show you that, in spite of my indignation, I am still in the habit of laughing. As to what you say in your letter about Dolabella, I advise you to look to it as closely as if your own interests were at stake. My last remark shall be this: I shall do nothing wild or inconsiderate. However, I beg you, in whatever country I may be, to protect me and my children, as our friendship and your honour demand.

§ Fam.14.7  CDIII (Fam. XIV, 7) TO TERENTIA (AT CUMAE) FORMIAE, 7 JUNE, 49 BC ALL those uneasy feelings and melancholy thoughts, by which I kept you in such extreme distress, which makes me more uneasy than anything — as well as Tulliola, who is dearer to me than life itself-I have got rid of and ejected. The reason of it all I discovered the day after I parted from you. I threw up sheer bile during the night: I was at once so much relieved, that I really think some god worked the cure. Pray make full and pious acknowledgment to the god (Apollo or Aesculapius), according to your wont. I hope I have a very good ship. I write this at the moment of embarkation. Presently I will compose a large number of letters to our friends, to whose protection I will commend you and our dear Tulliola with the greatest earnestness. I would have added exhortations to you with a view to raising your courage, had I not known that you were more courageous than any man. And, after all, I hope affairs are of such a nature, that I may venture to expect you to be as comfortable as possible there, and myself to be at last likely, in company with men like-minded with myself, to be acting in defence of our country. Let your first care be your health: next, if it seems to you possible, make use of the villas farthest removed from men in arms. You can with advantage use the place at Arpinum with your town establishment, if the price of food goes up. Our charming young Cicero sends his warmest love. Good-bye, good bye. 7 June Volume 3 48-44 BC

§ Fam.8.17  CDVI (Fam. VIII, 17) M. CAELIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (IN EPIRUS) ROME (FEBRUARY OR MARCH) To think that I was in Spain rather than at Formiae when you started to join Pompey I Oh that Appius Claudius had been on our side, or Gaius Curio on yours! 55 It was my friendship for the latter that gradually edged me on to this infernal party — for I feel that my good sense was destroyed between anger and affection. You too-when, being on the point of starting for Ariminum, 56 I came at night to visit you — in the midst of your giving me messages for Caesar about peace, and playing your role of fine citizen, you quite forgot your duty as a friend and took no thought of my interests. And I am not saying this because I have lost confidence in this cause, but, believe me, I'd rather die than see these fellows here. 57 Why, if people were not afraid of your men being bloodthirsty, we should long ago have been driven out of Rome. For here, with the exception of a few moneylenders, there is not a man or a class that is not Pompeian. Personally, I have brought it about that the masses above all, and — what was formerly ours — the main body of citizens should be now on your side."Why did I do so?" quoth you. Nay, wait for what is to come: I'll make you conquer in spite of yourselves. You shall see me play the part of a second Cato. You are asleep, and do not appear to me as yet to understand where we are open to attack, and what our weak point is. And I shall act thus from no hope of reward, but, what is ever the strongest motive with me, from indignation and a feeling of having been wronged. What are you doing over there? Are you Waiting for a battle? That's Caesar's strongest point. I don't know about your forces; ours have become thoroughly accustomed to fighting battles and making light of cold and hunger. 60

§ Fam.9.9  CDVII (Fam. IX, 9) DOLABELLA TO CICERO (IN EPIRUS) CAESAR'S CAMP IN EPIRUS (MAY OR JUNE) If you are well, I am glad. I am quite well, and so is our dear Tullia. Terentia has been rather unwell, but I am assured that she has now recovered. In all other respects things are quite as they should be at your house. Though at no time did I deserve to be suspected by you of acting from party motives rather than from a regard to your interests, when I urged you either to join Caesar and myself, or at least to retire from open war, especially since victory has already inclined in our favour, it is now not even possible that I should create any other impression than that of urging upon you what I could not, with due regard to my duty as your son-in-law, suppress. On your part, my dear Cicero, pray regard what follows — whether you accept or reject the advice — as both conceived and written with the best possible intention and the most complete devotion to yourself. You observe that Pompey is not secured either by the glory of his name and achievements, or by the list of client kings and peoples, which he was frequently wont to parade: and that even what has been possible for the rank and file, is impossible for him, — to effect an honourable retreat: driven as he has been from Italy, the Spanish provinces lost, a veteran army captured, and now finally inclosed by his enemy's lines. 61 Such disasters I rather think have never happened to a Roman general. Wherefore employ all your Wisdom in considering what either he or you have to hope. For thus you will most easily adopt the policy which will be to your highest advantage. Yet I do beg this of you, — that if Pompey succeeds in avoiding this danger and taking refuge with his fleet, you should consult for your own interests, and at length be your own friend rather than that of anyone else in the world. You have by this time satisfied the claims of duty or friendship, whichever you choose to call it: you have fulfilled all obligations to your party also, and to that constitution to which you are devoted. It remains to range ourselves with the constitution as now existing, rather than, while striving for the old one, to find ourselves with none at all. Wherefore my desire is, dearest Cicero, that, supposing Pompey to be driven from this district also and compelled to seek other quarters, you should betake yourself to Athens or any peaceful city you choose. If you decide to do so, pray write and tell me, that I may, if I possibly can, hurry to your side. Whatever marks of consideration for your rank have to be obtained from the commander-in-chief, such is Caesar's kindness, that it will be the easiest thing in the world for you to obtain them from him yourself: nevertheless, I think that a petition from me also will not be without considerable weight with him. I trust to your honour and kindness also to see that the letter-carrier whom I send to you may be enabled to return to me, and bring me a letter from you.

§ Fam.14.8  CDVIII (Fam. XIV, 8) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) POMPEY'S CAMP IN EPIRUS, 2 JUNE: If you are well, I am glad. I am well. Pray be very careful about your illness: for I have been informed by both letter and messenger that you have suddenly contracted fever. I am much obliged for your prompt information as to Caesar's despatch. Continue, pray, in future to inform me of any news I ought to know, whatever occurs. Take care of your health. Good-bye. 2 June.

§ Fam.14.21  CDX (Fam. XIV, 21) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) POMPEY'S CAMP IN EPIRUS (JUNE) If you are well, I am glad. I am well. Do your best to recover. As far as time and circumstance permit, provide for and conduct all necessary business, and as often as possible write to me on all points. Good-bye.

§ Fam.14.6  CDXII (Fam. XIV, 6) TO TERENTIA EPIRUS, 15 JULY: It is not very often that there is anyone to whom I can entrust a letter, nor have I anything that I am willing to write. From your letter last received I understand that no estate has been able to find a purchaser. Wherefore pray consider how the person may be satisfied whose claims you know that I wish satisfied. As for the gratitude which our daughter expresses to you, I am not surprised that your services to her are such, that she is able to thank you on good grounds. If Pollex has not yet started, turn him out as soon as you can. Take care of your health. 15 July. [There is now a break in the correspondence for more than three months, in the course of which the fate of the Republic was decided. On the 7th of July, Caesar, after Pompey had pierced his lines and inflicted a defeat upon him, retreated into Thessaly. Pompey's exultant followers forced him to follow, and on the 9th of August the battle of Pharsalia drove Pompey to his retreat and death in Egypt, and made Caesar master of the Empire. The fleet, indeed, still held out, and took those of the Pompeians who had not been in the battle or had escaped from it to Africa and Spain. But Cicero (who was with the fleet at Corcyra) refused to join in continuing the war, and after staying some time at Patrae returned to Brundisium, having, it appears, received Caesar's permission through Dolabella to do so. At Brundisium, however, he waited many months, not venturing to approach Rome till Caesar's will was known. It is during his residence at Brundisium that the next thirty-three letters are written. The dates are according to the unreformed calendar — in advance of the true time as much perhaps as two months.)

§ Fam.14.12  CDXIII (Fam. XIV, 12) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, 4 NOVEMBER: You say that you are glad of my safe arrival in Italy. I only hope you may continue to be glad. But I am afraid that, disordered as I was by mental anguish and the signal injuries which I have received, I have taken a step involving complications which I may find some difficulty in unravelling. 74 Wherefore do your best to help me: yet what you can do I cannot think. It is no use your starting on a journey at such a time as this. The way is both long and unsafe; and I don't see what good you can do me if you do come. Good-bye. Brundisium, 4 November.

§ Fam.14.19  CDXV (Fam. XIV, 19) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM (27 NOVEMBER) In the midst of my terrible sorrows Tullia's ill-health causes me acute agony. But about that I need not write to you at any greater length; for you, I know well, are no less anxious than myself. You wish me to come nearer the city, and I see that I must do so. I would have done it even before, but many difficulties prevented me, which are not even now removed. However, I am expecting a letter from Pomponius: please see that it is conveyed to me as soon as possible. Be sure you take care of your health.

§ Fam.14.9  CDXVII (Fam. XIV, 9) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM (17 DECEMBER) Sorrow for the illness both of Dolabella and Tullia is an addition to my other miseries. Every single thing goes wrong, and I don't know what to think or do about anything. Pray take care of your own and Tullia's health. Good-bye.

§ Fam.14.17  CDXIX (Fam. XIV, 17) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM (25 DECEMBER) If you are well, I am glad. I am well. If I had had anything to write to you about, I would have done so at greater length and more frequently. As it is, you see the state of my affairs. What the state of my feelings is you will be able to learn from Lepta and Trebatius. Be sure you take care of your own and Tullia's health. Good-bye.

§ Fam.14.16  CDXXII (Fam. XIV, 16) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, 4 JANUARY: If you are well, I am glad. I am well. Though my circumstances are such that I have no motive for expecting a letter from you or anything to tell you myself, yet somehow or another I do look for letters from you all, and do write to you when I have anyone to convey it. Volumnia ought to have been more attentive to you than she has been, and even what she has done she might have done with greater zeal and caution. However, there are other things for us to be more anxious about and vexed at. These latter distress me quite as much as was desired by those who forced me to act against my better judgment. Take care of your health. 4 January.

§ Fam.14.11  CDXXXI (Fam. XIV, 11) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, 14 JUNE: If you are well, I am glad. I am well. Our dear Tullia reached me on the 12th of June, by whose perfect excellence and unsurpassed gentleness I felt my sorrow even heavier than before, to think that my want of prudence was the cause of her being in a position far removed from that which her dutiful affection and high character might claim. It is in my mind to send our son to Caesar, and Gnaeus Sallustius with him. If he starts I will let you know. Take great care of your health. Good — bye. 14 June.

§ Fam.14.15  CDXXXIII (Fam. XIV, 15) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, 19 JUNE: If you are well, I am glad. I had resolved, as I told you in a previous letter, to send our son to meet Caesar, but I have changed my mind, because I hear nothing of his coming. On other matters, though there is nothing new, yet you will be able to learn from Sicca what my wishes are, and what I think necessary at such a time as this. I am still keeping Tullia with me. Take great care of your health. Good-bye. 19 June.

§ Fam.14.10  CDXXXVI (Fam. XIV, 10) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, 9 JULY: I wrote my wishes to Pomponius later than I ought to have done If you will have a talk with him, you will learn what they are. There is no need of being more explicit, seeing that I have written to him. On that business and on all others pray let me have a letter from you. Take good care of your health. Good-bye. 9 July.

§ Fam.14.13  CDXXXVII (Fam. XIV, 13) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, 10 JULY: In reference to what I said to you in my last about divorcing Tullia's husband, I don't know what force he has at his back at such a time as this, or what power of stirring up the populace. If he can be dangerous when roused to anger, do nothing. But yet it is possible that he will take the first step. But you must judge after a review of the whole business, and do what you think least distressing in a most distressing business. Good-bye. 10 July.

§ Fam.14.24  CDXL (Fam. XIV, 24) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, 11 AUGUST: If you are well, I am glad. I am well. Neither about Caesar's coming nor of the letter, of which Philotimus is said to be the bearer, have I as yet any certain intelligence. If I do get any such, I will inform you promptly. Be sure you take good care of your health. Good-bye. 11 August.

§ Fam.14.23  CDXLI (Fam. XIV, 23) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, 12 AUGUST: If you are well, I am glad. I am well. At last I have Caesar's letter, and a kind enough one it is. He himself is said to be coming quicker than was thought. When I have made up my mind whether to go to meet him or await him here, I will let you know. I should like you to send letter-carriers at the first opportunity. Take good care of your health. Good-bye. 12 August.

§ Fam.14.22  CDXLV (Fam. XIV, 22) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM, I SEPTEMBER: If you are well, I am glad. I am well. I am expecting my letter-carriers any time today. If they come, I shall perhaps learn what I shall have to do, and will at once let you know. Take good care of your health. Good-bye. 1 September.

§ Fam.15.15  CDXLVI (Fam. XV, 15) TO GAIUS CASSIUS (IN ASIA?) BRUNDISIUM (AUGUST OR EARLY SEPTEMBER) ALTHOUGH both of us, from a hope of peace and a loathing for Civil bloodshed, desired to hold aloof from an obstinate prosecution of war, nevertheless, since I think I was the first to adopt that policy, I am perhaps more bound to give you satisfaction on that point, than to expect it from you. Although, as I am often wont to recall in my own mind, my intimate talk with you and yours with me led us both to the Conclusion that it was reasonable that, if not the cause as a whole, yet at least our judgment should be decided by the result of one battle. Nor does anyone ever sincerely criticise this opinion of ours, except those who think it better that the constitution should be utterly destroyed, rather than remain in a maimed and weakened state. I, on the Contrary, saw of course no personal hope from its destruction, much from its surviving fragments. But a state of things has followed which makes it more surprising that those events were possible, than that we did not foresee what was going to happen, and were unable with our merely human faculties to prophesy it. For my part, I confess that my view was that, when that battle had been fought, which seemed as it were to be the last word of fate, the conquerors would desire measures to be taken for the safety of the community at large, the conquered for their own. But both of these policies I regarded as depending on the promptness of the victor. If that promptness had been displayed, Africa would have experienced the same indulgence which Asia and Achaia too have witnessed, you yourself, as I think, acting as agent and intercessor. But the hours having been allowed to slip away-always most precious, and never more so than in civil wars — the year that intervened induced some to hope for victory, others to think lightly of the defeat itself. And the blame for all this mischief is on the shoulders of fortune. For who would have thought such a serious delay as that of the Alexandrian war was going to be added to the war already fought, or that a princeling like that Pharnaces of yours was going to cause a panic in Asia. For ourselves, however, though our policy was the same, our fortune has been different. For you have adopted the role of taking an active part in his councils, and of thus keeping yourself in a position to foresee what was going to happen, which more than anything else relieves one's anxiety. I, who was in a hurry to see Caesar in Italy — for that is what I thought would happen-and, when he returned after sparing many of the most honourable men, to "spur the willing horse" (as the phrase goes) in the direction of peace, am now most widely separated from him, and have been so all along. Moreover, I am living in the hearing of the groans of Italy and the most heartrending complaints in Rome: to which we might perhaps have contributed some alleviation, I in my way, you in yours, and everyone in his own, if only the chief man had been there. Wherefore I would have you, in view of your unbroken affection for me, write and tell me what you know, what you feel, and what you think I am to expect or ought to do. A letter from you will be of great value in my eyes, and would that I had obeyed that first one, which you sent me from Luceria! For I should then have retained my position without any of this distress. [Between the date of the last letter to Terentia (1 September) and that of the next (1 October) Caesar had landed at Tarentum, and, meeting Cicero, who was coming to greet him, alighted from his carriage, embraced him, had a long conversation with him on the road, and gave him free leave to live where he chose. Cicero seems to have at once started for his favourite round of visits to his villas, and then gone to Rome. This is the end, then, of the episode in his life connected with the Civil War. Henceforth, till Caesar's assassination, he lives a comparatively retired and literary life, seldom appearing in the senate or as an advocate.]

§ Fam.14.20  CDXLVII (Fam. XIV, 20) TO TERENTIA (AT ROME) VENUSIA, I OCTOBER: I think I shall arrive at my house at Tusculum either on the 7th or the day after. See that everything is ready there. For there will perhaps be several others with me, and we shall stay there a considerable time, I think. If there is no basin in the bath, have one put in: and so with every-thing necessary for supporting life and health. Good-bye. 1 October, from Venusia.

§ Fam.15.21  CDXLVIII (Fam. XV, 21) TO GAIUS TREBONIUS (IN SPAIN) ROME (DECEMBER?) I found pleasure in reading your letter, and a very great one in reading your book: yet in the midst of that pleasure I experienced this sorrow, that, after having inflamed my desire of increasing the closeness of our intercourse — for as far as affection goes no addition was possible-you at once quit us, and inspire me with such deep regret, as to leave me but one consolation, namely, that our mutual regret for each other's absence may be softened by long and frequent letters. This I can guarantee not only from myself to you, but also from you to me. For you left no doubt in my mind as to how much you were attached to me. I will pass over what you did in the sight of the whole state, when you took upon you a share of my quarrels, when you defended me in your public speeches, when as quaestor you stood by the consuls in what was at once my cause and that of the constitution, when as quaestor again you refused to submit to the tribune, and that though your colleague was for obeying him. Yet, to forget your recent services (which I shall always remember), what anxiety for me did you show during the war, what joy at my return, what anxiety, what pain, when my anxieties and sorrows were reported to you! Lastly, the fact that you had meant to come to Brundisium to see me had you not been suddenly sent to Spain — to omit, I say, all this, which in my eyes must be as precious as my own life and safety, what a strong profession of affection does the book which you have sent me convey I First, because you think any utterance of mine to be witty, though others perhaps do not: and, secondly, because those mots, whether witty or the reverse, become extraordinarily attractive as you tell them. In fact, even before they come to me, your readers have all but exhausted their power of laughter. But if in making this compilation there was no more compliment than the inevitable fact of your having thought for so long a time exclusively about me, I should be hard-hearted indeed if I did not love you. Seeing, however, that what you have taken the trouble to write you could never have planned without a very strong affection, I cannot deem that anyone is dearer to himself than I am to you: to which affection would that I could respond in other ways! I will at least do so in affection on my part: with which, after all, I feel certain you will be fully satisfied. Now I come to your letter, which, though written in full and gratifying terms, there is no reason why I should answer at great length. For, in the first place, I did not send that letter to Calvus, any more than the one you are now reading, with an idea of its getting abroad. For I write in one style what I expect that the persons addressed only, in another what I expect that many, will read. In the next place, I praised his genius in higher terms than you think could have been done with sincerity. To begin with, it was because that was my real opinion. He had a subtle and active mind: he adhered to a certain definite style, in which, though his judgment was at fault — generally his strong point — he yet attained his aim. He had great and uncommon learning: force he had not. It was in that direction, therefore, that I tried to rouse his energies. Now, in stimulating and whetting a man's intellect nothing is more efficacious than to mingle praise with exhortation. That is my judgment on Calvus, and the motive of my letter: motive, in that I praised in order to stimulate him; judgment, in that I thought very highly of his ability. It only remains to follow your journey with affectionate interest, to look forward to your return with hope, to cherish you while absent in memory, and to alleviate our regret by an interchange of letters. I should wish you often to recall your kindnesses and good services to me; for while you may, and I may not, forget them without positive crime, you will have reason, not only to think me an honest man, but also to believe that you are deeply loved by me.

§ Fam.13.10  CDXLIX (Fam. XIII, 10) TO M. IUNIUS BRUTUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL) ROME (?JANUARY) As Marcus Varro was starting to join you as your quaestor, I did not think that he stood in need of any recommendation: for I thought him sufficiently recommended to you by the custom of our ancestors, which ordained — as you are doubtless aware — that this connexion of a quaestor with his chief should be as nearly as possible that of sons to their father. But as he has convinced himself that a letter from me, carefully expressed in regard to him, would be likely to have great weight with you, and as he pressed me warmly to write as fully as possible, I preferred to do what an intimate friend thought to be of so much importance to himself. I will show you, then, that I am bound to act thus. From his first entrance into public life M. Terentius attached himself to me. Presently, when he had established his position, two additional reasons appeared to increase my warm feelings towards him: one was the fact that he was engaged in the same pursuit as myself, that which still forms my greatest delight, displaying, as you are aware, both genius and no lack of industry; the second was that he early embarked on the companies of publicani-unfortunately, as it turned out, for he suffered very heavy losses: still, the interests of an order to which I was very closely bound being thus shared by us both made our friendship all the stronger. Once more, after an honourable and creditable career on both benches, just before the recent revolution he became a candidate for office, and looked upon that as the most honourable fruit of his toil. Again, in the late crisis he went from my house at Brundisium with a message and letter for Caesar: in which affair I had clear proof of his affection in undertaking the business, and of his good faith in carrying it through and bringing me back an answer. I had intended to speak separately as to his uprightness and high character, but it seems to me that in thus beginning with a statement of the reason for my loving him, I have in that statement already said enough about his uprightness. Nevertheless, I do promise as a separate thing, and pledge my word, that he will be at once delightful and useful to you. For you will find him a steady, sensible man, as far removed as possible from any self-seeking, and, moreover, a man of the most laborious and industrious character. Now it is no business of mine to promise what you must form your own judgment upon, when you have become well acquainted with him: yet, after all, in forming new connexions the first approach is always of consequence, and by what kind of introduction the door of friendship, so to speak, is opened. This is what I wished to effect by the present letter: though the tie between a quaestor and his chief ought in itself to have effected it. Vet it will not, after all, be any the weaker by this addition. Be careful, therefore, if you value me as highly as Varro thinks, and I feel that you do, to let me know as soon as possible that my recommendation has done him as much service as he himself hoped, and I had no doubt, that it would. 174

§ Fam.13.11  CDL (Fam. XIII, 11) TO M. IUNIUS BRUTUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL) ROME (?) I have observed that you take great pains to allow nothing which concerns me to be unknown to you; I therefore feel no doubt that you know not only to what municipium I belong, but also how careful I am to defend the interests of my fellow townsmen of Arpinum. Now their entire income and resources, which enable them to keep their temples and other public buildings in repair, depend upon the rents which they own in the province of Gallia. To visit these estates, to collect the moneys owed by the tenants, and generally to investigate and provide for the management of the whole property, we are sending a commission of Roman knights, Quintus Fufidius, son of Quintus, Marcus Faucius, son of Marcus, Quintus Mamercius, son of Quintus. be explained as "advocate and juryman," for the use of subsellia for the seats of the jury is doubtful, and for the praetor (in a civil suit) it would be "tribunal." I beg you with more than common earnestness, in the name of our friendship, that you would have an eye to this affair, and take pains that as far as you are concerned the business of the municipium may be transacted with as little difficulty, and finished as promptly, as possible; and that you would treat the persons themselves, whose names I have given, with all the honour and kindness which characterize you. By doing so you will have attached men of honour to your person, and have put a most grateful municipium under an obligation to you for your kind service. For myself, you will have done me a more than common favour, because, while it has been my invariable custom to protect my fellow townsmen's interests, this particular year has a special claim upon my attention and service to them. For this year I have, for the sake of settling the affairs of the municipium, consented that my son, and nephew, and M. Caesius — a very intimate friend of mine-should be aediles; for that and no other is the magistrate customarily elected in our municipium. You will have contributed to the reputation of these last, if the public business of the municipium should, thanks to your kindness and attention, turn out to have been well managed. I beg you warmly and repeatedly to do this.

§ Fam.13.12  CDLI (Fam. XIII, 12) TO M. IUNIUS BRUTUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL) ROME (?) IN another letter I have commended our commissioners from Arpinum in a body as earnestly as I could. In this with still greater earnestness I commend Q. Fufidius to you separately — with whom I have ties of all kinds — not to detract at all from the former commendation, but to put in this one in addition. He has two special claims on me: he is a stepson of M. Caesius, who is a very intimate friend and close connexion of mine; and he served under me in Cilicia as a military tribune, in which office he conducted himself in such a way as to make me feel that I had received a kindness from him, rather than conferred one. He is besides — which is of very great weight with you — by no means without taste for our favourite studies. Wherefore I would have you admit him to your society without the least reserve, and take pains to make his labour on this commission — which he has undertaken to his own inconvenience and at my instigation — as complete a success as possible. For he wishes, as the best men naturally do, to earn the utmost possible credit both from me, who urged him to undertake it, and from the municipium. This he will succeed in doing, if by this recommendation of mine he secures your good services.

§ Fam.13.13  CDLII (Fam. XIII, 13) TO M. IUNIUS BRUTUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL) ROME (?) L. CASTRONIUS PAETUS, a long way the most important citizen of the municipium of Luca, is honourable, high-minded, very obliging, and, in short, a really good man, adorned with excellent qualities, and, if that is at all to the point, with ample means to boot. He is, moreover, very intimate with me; so much so, that there is no one in the senate to whom he is more attentive than myself. Anything you do to oblige him will be a source of pleasure to yourself, and at any rate will be gratefully received by me.

§ Fam.13.14  CDLIII (Fam. XIII, 14) TO M. IUNIUS BRUTUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL) ROME (?) I am very intimate with L. Titius Strabo, one of the most honourable and accomplished of the Roman knights. Services of every sort which belong to the closest intimacy have been interchanged between myself and him. P. Cornelius in your province owes him a sum of money. That case has been referred by Volcatius, the praetor urbanus, for trial in Gaul. I beg you more earnestly than if it were business of mine — in proportion as it is more honourable to take trouble about one's friends' money than one's Own — to see to the matter being concluded. Take it in hand personally, settle it, and do your best — so far as it shall appear to you to be fair and right — that Strabo's freedman, who has been sent to represent him, may bring the matter to a conclusion on the most favourable terms possible and get at the money. You will thus be doing me a very great favour, and at the same time will yourself have reason to know that L. Titius is in the highest degree worthy of your friendship. That you may bestow attention upon this, as you usually do on everything which you know me to wish, I warmly and repeatedly entreat you. 177

§ Fam.9.1  CDLIV (Fam. IX, 1) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO ROME (?) From a letter of yours, which Atticus read to me, I learnt what you were doing and where you were; but when we were likely to see you, I could gain no idea at all from the letter. However, I am beginning to hope that your arrival is not far off. I wish it could be any consolation to me! But the fact is, I am overwhelmed by so many and such grave anxieties, that no one but the most utter fool ought to expect any alleviation: yet, after all, perhaps you can give me some kind of help, or I you. For allow me to tell you that, since my arrival in the city, I have effected a reconciliation with my old friends, I mean my books: though the truth is that I had not abandoned their society because I had fallen out with them, but because I was half ashamed to look them in the face. For I thought, when I plunged into the maelstrom of civil strife, with allies whom I had the worst possible reason for trusting, that I had not shown proper respect for their precepts. They pardon me: they recall me to our old intimacy, and you, they say, have been wiser than I for never having left it. Wherefore, since I find them reconciled, I seem bound to hope, if I once see you, that I shall pass through with ease both what is weighing me down now, and what is threatening. Therefore in your company, whether you choose it to be in your Tusculan or Cuman villa, or, which I should like least, at Rome, so long only as we are together, I will certainly contrive that both of us shall think it the most agreeable place possible.

§ Fam.13.29  CDLV (Fam. XIII, 29) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN AFRICA) ROME (?) I have no doubt of your knowing that, among the connexions bequeathed to you by your father, there was no one more closely united to you than myself, not only for the reasons which give an appearance of close attachment, but also for those which are kept in operation by actual intimacy and association, which you know to have existed between me and your father in the highest degree and with the greatest mutual gratification. Starting from that origin my personal affection enhanced the ancestral friendship, and the more so that I perceived, as soon as your time of life admitted of your forming an independent judgment as to the value you should attach to this or that person, that I at once began to receive from you marks of respect, regard, and affection. To this was added the bond — in itself no slight one — of common studies, and of such studies and accomplishments as, in their very nature, serve to bind together men who have the same tastes in close ties of intimacy also. I imagine you must be waiting to see to what this elaborate prelude is tending. To begin with, let me assure you that this resume' of facts has not been made by me without good and sufficient reason. I am exceedingly intimate with C. Ateius Capito. You know what the ups and downs of my fortunes have been. In every position of honour or of difficulty of mine, Capito's courage, active assistance, influence, and even money were ever at my service, supplied my occasions, and were ready for every crisis. He had a relation named Titus Antistius. While this man was serving in Macedonia as quaestor, according to the lot, and had had no successor appointed, Pompey arrived in that province at the head of an army. Antistius could do nothing. For if he had had things his own way, there is nothing he would have preferred to going back to Capito, for whom he had a filial affection, especially as he knew how much he valued Caesar and had always done so. But, being taken by surprise, he only engaged in the business as far as he was unable to refuse. When money was being coined at Apollonia, I cannot say that he presided at the mint, nor can I deny that he was engaged in it; but it was not for more than two or three months. After that he held aloof from the camp: he avoided official employment of every sort. I would have you believe me on this point as an eye-witness: for he used to see my melancholy during that campaign, he used to talk things over with me without reserve. Accordingly, he withdrew into hiding in central Macedonia at as great a distance as he could from the camp, so as to avoid not only taking command in any department, but even being on the spot. After the battle he retired to Bithynia to a friend's house named Aulus Plautius. When Caesar saw him there he did not say a single rough or angry word to him; and bade him come to Rome. Immediately after that he had an illness from which he never recovered. He arrived at Corcyra ill, and there died. By a will which he had made at Rome in the consulship of Paulus and Marcellus, Capito was made his heir to five-sixths of his estate: as regards the other sixth, the heirs were men whose share may be confiscated without a word of complaint from anyone. That amounts to thirty sestertia. This is a matter for Caesar to consider. But in the name of our ancestral friendship, in the name of our mutual affection, in the name of our common studies and the close identity in the whole current of our existence, I do ask and entreat you, my dear Plancus, with an anxiety and warmth beyond which I cannot go in any matter, to exert yourself, to put out your best energies, and to secure that by my recommendation, your own zeal, and Caesar's indulgence, Capito may obtain possession of his kinsman's legacy. Everything that I could possibly have got from you in this your hour of highest favour and influence, I shall regard you as having voluntarily bestowed upon me, if I obtain this object. There is a circumstance, of which Caesar has the best means of judging, which I hope will assist you-Capito always showed respect and affection for Caesar. But Caesar can himself bear witness to this: I know the excellence of his memory: so I don't give you any instructions. Do not pledge yourself to Caesar on Capito's behalf, any farther than you shall perceive that he remembers. For my part, I will submit to you what I have been able to put to the test in my own case: you must judge of its importance for yourself. You are not ignorant of the side and the cause which I have supported in politics, by the aid of what individuals and orders I have maintained myself, and by whom I have been fortified. Believe me when I say this: if I have done anything in the late war itself which was not quite to Caesar's taste — though I am well aware that Caesar knows me to have done so quite against my will — I have done it by the advice, instigation, and influence of others. But in so far as I have been more moderate and reasonable than anyone else of that party, I have been so by the influence of Capito more than anyone else: and if my other connexions had been like him, I should perhaps have done the State some good, certainly I should have done a great deal to myself. If you accomplish this object, my dear Plancus, you will confirm my expectations as to your kind feeling towards myself, and you will by your eminent service have bound Capito himself to you as a friend — a man of the most grateful and obliging disposition, and of the most excellent character.

§ Fam.5.21  CDLVI (Fam. V, 21) TO L. MESCINIUS RUFUS ROME, APRIL: I was gratified by your letter which told me, what I thought to be the case even without any letter, that you were inspired with a very eager desire to see me. I gladly accept the compliment, but I do not yield to you in the strength 9f the wish: for may I have all my heart's desire, as I ardently long to be with you! Even at the time when I had a greater wealth of good citizens, agreeable men, and attached friends about me, there was yet no one whose Society I enjoyed more than yours, and few whose I enjoyed as much. But at the present time, since some have died, others are away, and others changed in feeling, upon my honour, a single day devoted to you will bring a richer return of pleasure than all this time given to most of those with whom I am forced to live. For do not imagine that solitude — and even that, after all, I am not allowed to en-joy — is not pleasanter than the talk of those who crowd my house, with one or at most two exceptions. Accordingly, I fly to that refuge, which I think you should also seek — my darling studies: and, in addition to them, the consciousness of the principles I have maintained. For I am a man, as you will have no difficulty in conceiving, who have never acted for my own interests in preference to those of my fellow citizens: a man of whom, if he whom you never loved — for you loved me — had not been jealous, he would now have been in prosperity, and so would all the loyalists. I am he whose wish was that no man's brute force should be preferred to peace with honour. And again, when I perceived that the very appeal to arms, which I had always dreaded, was to influence the result more than that union of all loyalists (of which I again was the author), I preferred accepting a peace on any terms whatever that were safe to a combat with the stronger. But all this and much else when we meet, as we soon shall. For after all there is nothing to keep me at Rome except the expectation of news from Africa: for the campaign there seems to me to have come to a point when the decisive stroke cannot be far off. Now whatever that news may be, I suppose it is of some importance to me that I should not be out of the way of consulting my friends: I don't, indeed, see clearly what the precise importance is, but nevertheless it must be of some. In fact, it has come to this, that though there is a wide difference between the merits of the two contending sides, I should imagine there will not be much difference between the way they will use their victory. But my courage, which has perhaps been somewhat weak while the result was undecided, now that all is lost, has greatly recovered its tone. You, too, did much to strengthen it by your previous letter, from which I learnt how bravely you were bearing your injurious treatment: and it was helpful to me to find that your lofty character, as well as your literary studies, had stood you in good stead. For I will be candid: I used to think you somewhat lacking in spirit, as indeed most of us were, who have lived the life of free men in a state that was itself wealthy and free. But as we were moderate in the old prosperity, so ought we to endure now with courage what is not a mere reverse of fortune, but a total loss of it: to the end that we may get this amount of good at least in the midst of the gravest ills, that, while even in prosperity we were bound to disregard death (seeing that it will bring with it an absence of all sensation ), at this time and with these distresses we ought not only to disregard, but even to wish for it. If you have any regard for me, continue to enjoy your leisure and convince yourself that, except misconduct and crime — of which you have been and always will be clear-nothing can happen to a man that can soil his honour or should rouse his fear. For my part, if it shall seem feasible, I will come to see you before long: if anything happens to make a change in my plans necessary, I will at once let you know. Don't allow your eagerness to see me induce you to move in your present weak state of health, without first asking me by letter what I want you to do. Pray go on loving me as before, and devote yourself to your health and peace of mind.

§ Fam.9.3  CDLVIII (Fam. IX, 3) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (ABOUT THE 18TH OF APRIL) Though I have nothing to say to you, yet I could not let Caninius go to you without taking anything from me. What, then, shall I say for choice? What I think you wish, that I am coming to you very soon. Yet pray consider whether it is quite right for us to be in a place like that when public affairs are in such a blaze. We shall be giving those persons an excuse for talking, who don't know that, wherever we are, we keep the same style and the same manner of life. But what does it matter? Anyhow, we shall give rise to gossip. We ought, forsooth, to take great pains, at a time when society at large is wallowing in every kind of immorality and abomination, to prevent our abstention from active life, whether indulged in alone or together, from being unfavourably remarked upon! For my part, I shall join you, and snap my fingers at the ignorance of these Philistines. For, however miserable the present state of affairs — and nothing can be more so-yet, after all, our studies seem in a way to produce a richer harvest now than of old, whether it is because we can now find relief in nothing else, or because the severity of the disease makes the need of medicine felt, and its virtue is now manifested, which we used not to feel while we were in good health. 'But why these words of wisdom to you now, who have them at hand home-grown — "an owl to Athens? " Only, of course, to get you to write me an answer, and wait for my coming. Pray do so therefore.

§ Fam.9.2  CDLIX (Fam. IX, 2) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (APRIL, AFTER THE 20TH OF APRIL) Caninius, our common friend, having called upon me very late in the evening, and having told me that he was starting to join you in the morning, I told him that I would have something for him to take, and begged him to Call for it in the morning. I finished my letter in the night, but he never Came: I supposed that he had forgotten. Nevertheless, I should have sent you the letter itself by my own letter-carriers, had I not heard from the same friend next day that you were starting from your Tusculan villa in the morning. But now look at, this! All on a sudden a few days later, when I wasn't in the least expecting it, Caninius Called on me in the morning, and said that he was starting to join you at once. Though that letter was now stale, especially considering the importance of the news that have since arrived, yet I was unwilling that my night's work should be thrown away, and gave it as it was to Caninius: but I spoke to him as to a man of learning and one warmly attached to you, and I presume that he has conveyed my words to you. However, I give you the same counsel that I give myself — to avoid men's eyes, if we find it difficult to avoid their tongues. For those who give themselves airs about the victory regard us in the light of defeated enemies: while those who are vexed at our friends' defeat regret that we remain alive. You will ask perhaps why, this being the state of things in the city, I have not left town like yourself? You, I presume, you, who surpass both me and others in the clearness of your perceptions, divined it all! Nothing of course escaped you! Why, who is so much of a Lynceus as, in such pitchy darkness, never to stumble on anything, never to blunder against anything anywhere? For my part, it long ago occurred to my mind how pleasant a thing it would be to go out of town somewhere, so as to avoid seeing and hearing what is being done and said here. But I had certain misgivings: my idea was that everyone who met me on the road would, as it suited his particular point of view, suspect, or, even if he did not suspect it, would say: "This fellow is either frightened, and therefore is running away, or he is meditating some move and has a ship ready prepared." In fact, even the man whose suspicion was the least malicious, and who perhaps knew me best, would have thought my motive for going was that my eyes could not endure the sight of certain persons. From some such misgivings as these I am as yet staying on at Rome, and after all, long habit has insensibly covered over the wound and deadened my indignation. That is the explanation of my policy. For yourself, then, what I think you should do is this: remain in retirement where you are until such time as this exultation is past boiling point, and at the same time till we hear particulars of the decisive struggle: for decisive I think it was. But it will make all the difference what the feeling of the conqueror is, and how the campaign has ended. Though I am able to make a shrewd guess, still I wait, after all, for information. Nor, indeed, would I have you starting for Baiae until rumour has shouted itself hoarse. For it will be more to our credit, even when we do quit the city, to be thought to have come to that neighbourhood rather to weep than to swim. But you know all this better than I. Only let us abide by our resolve to live together in pursuit of those studies of ours, from which we formerly sought only pleasure, but now seek also the preservation of our lives. And if anyone wishes for our services-not merely as architects, but also as workmen to build up the constitution-let us not refuse to assist, but rather hasten with enthusiasm to the task. And if, on the other hand, no one will employ us, let us compose and read "Republics." And if we cannot do so in the senate-house and forum, yet at least (after the example of the most learned of the ancients) on paper and in books let us govern the state, and investigate its customs and laws. These are my views. You will very much oblige me if you will write and tell me what you mean to do and what your opinion is.

§ Fam.9.7  CDLX (Fam. IX, 7) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (MAY) I was dining with Seius when a letter was delivered to each of us from you. Yes, I really think it is high time. For as to the personal motive in what I said before, I will own the cunning of my heart — I wanted you to be somewhere near in case of anything good turning up: "two heads," you know. At present, seeing that it is all over and done, we should not hesitate to go over, horse, foot, and artillery! For when I heard about L. Caesar the younger, I said to myself: "What will he do for me, his sire?" Accordingly, I do not cease dining out with the members of the party now in power. What else should I do? One must go with the times. But a truce to jesting, especially as we have nothing to laugh at: "With fearsome tumult shakes wild Afric's shore." Accordingly, there is nothing "undesirable" which I do not fear. But, in answer to your question as to when, by what road, and whither — I as yet know nothing. You suggest Baiae — but some doubt whether he will not come by way of Sardinia. For that particular one of his estates he has not inspected as yet. It is the worst of them all, nevertheless he does not despise it. For my part, I am on the whole more inclined to think that he will come through Sicily to Velia: but we shall know directly; for Dolabella is on his way home: he, I suppose, will be our instructor: "Scholars are often wiser than their teachers." But nevertheless, if I can ascertain what you have settled, I will accommodate my policy to yours before anyone else's. Wherefore I am anxious for a letter from you.

§ Fam.9.5  CDLXI (Fam. IX, 5) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (LATE IN MAY) Yes, I think the 5th of next month will be in very good time, both in consideration of the state of public affairs and of the season of the year. Wherefore I approve of that day: and will myself accordingly aim at the same. I should not have thought that we ought to repent of our policy, even if those who did not adopt it were not now repentant. For our guiding star was not advantage, but duty: and what we abandoned was not duty, but a hopeless task. So we showed greater sensitiveness to honour than those who never stirred from home, and greater reasonableness than those who did not return home when all was lost. But nothing irritates me so much as the severe Criticism of the do-nothings, and I am more inclined to feel scrupulous about those who fell in the war, than to trouble myself about those who are angry with us for being alive. If I find a spare moment for coming to Tusculum before the 5th, I will see you there: if not, I will follow you to your Cuman villa, and give you notice beforehand, that the bath may be got ready.

§ Fam.7.3  CDLXII (Fam. VII, 3) TO M. MARIUS (AT POMPEII) ROME (LATE IN MAY) Very often, as I reflect upon the miseries in which we have all alike been living these many years past, and, as far as I can see, are likely to be living, lam wont to recall that time when we last met: nay, I remember the exact day. Having arrived at my Pompeian villa on the evening of the 12th of May, in the consulship of Lentulus and Marcellus, you came to see me in a state of anxiety. What was making you uneasy was your reflexion both on my duty and my danger. If I remained in Italy, you feared my being wanting to my duty: if I set out to the camp, you were agitated by the thought of my danger. At that time you certainly found me so unnerved as to be unable to unravel the tangle and see what was best to be done. Nevertheless, I preferred to be ruled by honour and reputation, rather than to consider the safety of my life. Of this decision I afterwards repented, not so much on account of the danger I incurred, as because of the many fatal weaknesses which I found on arrival at my destination. In the first place, troops neither numerous nor on a proper war footing; in the second place, beyond the general and a few others — I am speaking of the men of rank — the rest, to begin with, greedy for plunder in conducting the war itself, and moreover so bloodthirsty in their talk, that I shuddered at the idea of victory itself: and, lastly, immense indebtedness on the part of the men of the highest position. In short, there was nothing good except the cause. Despairing of victory when I saw these things, I first began advising a peace, which had always been my policy; next, finding Pompey vehemently opposed to that idea, I proceeded to advise him to protract the war. Of this he at times expressed approval, and seemed likely to adopt the suggestion; and he perhaps would have done so, had it not been that as a result of a certain engagement he began to feel confidence in his soldiers. From that day forth that eminent man ceased to be anything of a general. He accepted battle against the most highly seasoned legions with an army of raw recruits and hastily collected men. Having been shamefully beaten, with the loss also of his camp, he fled alone. This I regarded as the end of the war, as far as I was concerned, nor did I imagine that, having been found unequal to the struggle while still unbeaten, we should have the upper hand after a crushing defeat. I abandoned a war in which the alternatives were to fall on the field of battle, or to fall into some ambush, or to come into the conqueror's hands, or to take refuge with Iuba, or to select some place of residence as practically an exile, or to die by one's own hand. At least there was no other alternative, if you had neither the will nor the courage to trust yourself to the victor. Now, of all these alternatives I have mentioned, none is more en-durable than exile, especially to a man with clean hands, when no dishonour attaches to it: and I may also add, when you lose a city, in which there is nothing that you can look at without pain. For my part, I preferred to remain with my own family — if a man may nowadays call anything his own — and also on my own property. What actually happened I foretold in every particular. I came home, not because that offered the best condition of life, but that after all, if some form of a constitution remained, I might be there as though in my own country, and if not, as though in exile. For inflicting death on myself there seemed no adequate reason: many reasons why I should wish for it. For it is an old saying, "When you cease to be what once you were, there is no reason why you should wish to live." But after all it is a great consolation to be free of blame, especially as I have two things upon which to rely for support-acquaintance with the noblest kind of learning and the glory of the most brilliant achievements: of which the former will never be torn from me while I live, the latter not even after my death. I have written these things to you somewhat fully, and have bored you with them, because I knew you to be most devoted both to myself and to the Republic. I wished you to be acquainted with my entire views, that in the first place you might know that it was never a wish of mine that any one individual should have more power than the Republic as a whole; but that, when by some one's fault a particular person did become so powerful as to make resistance to him impossible, I was for peace: that when the army was lost, as well as the leader in whom alone our hopes had been fixed, I wished to put an end to the war for the rest of the party also: and, when that proved impossible, that I did so for myself. But that now, if our state exists, I am a citizen of it; if it does not, that I am an exile in a place quite as suited for the position, as if I had betaken myself to Rhodes or Mytilene. I should have preferred to discuss this with you personally, but as the possibility of that was somewhat remote, I determined to make the same statement by letter, that you might have something to say, if you ever fell in with any of my critics. For there are men who, though my death would have been utterly useless to the state, regard it as a crime that I am still alive, and who I am certain think that those who perished were not numerous enough. Though, if these persons had listened to me, they would now, however unfair the terms of peace, have been living in honour; for while inferior in arms they would have been superior in the merits of their cause. Here's a letter somewhat more wordy than perhaps you would have wished; and that I shall hold to be your opinion, unless you send me a still longer one in reply. If I can get through with some business which I wish to settle, I shall, I hope, see you before long.

§ Fam.6.22  CDLXIII (Fam. VI, 22) TO CN. DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS (IN ITALY) ROME (MAY) It was not the fact of your never having written to me since your arrival in Italy that deterred me from writing to you. The reason was that I could not think of any promise to make you in my present state of complete destitution, or of any advice to give you, being quite at a loss myself as to what policy to pursue, or of any consolation to offer in the midst of such grave disasters. Although things here are in no way improved, and, in fact, are continually becoming more and more desperate, yet I preferred sending you a colourless letter to not sending you one at all. For myself, if I had perceived that you had undertaken a task in the cause of the Republic greater than you were able to make good, I should yet to the best of my ability have counselled you to accept life on such terms as were offered you and were actually available. But since you have decided that to your policy, righteously and courageously adopted, there should be the same limit as fortune herself had laid down as the finishing point of our struggles, I beg and implore you, in the name of our old union and friendship, and in the name of my extreme affection for you and your no less strong one for me, to preserve yourself alive for us, for your mother, your wife, and all near and dear to you, to whom you have ever been the object of the deepest affection. Consult for the safety of yourself and of those who hang upon you. The lessons gathered from the wisest of philosophers, and grasped and remembered by you from your youth up with such brilliant success — all these put in practice at this crisis. Sorrow for those you have lost — so closely connected with you by the warmest affection and the most constant kindness-bear, if not without pain, yet at least with courage. What I can do I know not, or rather I feel how helpless I am; but this, nevertheless, I do promise: whatever I shall conceive to conduce to your safety and honour, I will do with the same zeal, as you have ever shown and practically employed in what concerned my fortunes. I have conveyed this expression of my warm feelings for you to your mother, the noblest of women and the most devoted of mothers. Whatever you write to me I will do, as far as I shall understand your wishes. But even if you fail to write, I shall yet with the utmost zeal and care do what I shall think to be for your interest. Good-bye.

§ Fam.9.4  CDLXIV (Fam. IX, 4) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (?AT CUMAE) TUSCULUM (JUNE) About things "possible," let me tell you my opinion agrees with Diodorus. Wherefore, if you are to come, be assured that your coming is "necessary," but if you are not, then it is "impossible" that you should come. Now see which opinion pleases you the more, that of Chrysippus or the one which our teacher Diodotus could not stomach. But on these points also we will talk when we are at leisure: that too is "possible," according to Chrysippus. I am much obliged to you about Coctius: for that is just what I had commissioned Atticus to do. Yes, if you don't come to me, I shall take a run to you. If you have a garden in your library, everything will be complete.

§ Fam.9.6  CDLXVIII (Fam. IX, 6) TO M. TERENTIUS VARRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (JUNE) Our friend Caninius has brought a message from you bidding me write and tell you whatever I thought you ought to know. Well then, Caesar's arrival of course is occupying men's minds, and of that you are yourself not unaware. However, he having written, I presume, to say that he intended to come to his villa at Alsium, his friends wrote to him not to do so: that many people would annoy him, and he himself annoy many: they thought it would be more convenient for him to land at Ostia. I do not myself understand what difference it makes; but yet Hirtius told me that both he and Balbus and Oppius had written to him to do so-men, as I have reason to know, who are attached to you. I wanted you to learn this, that you might know where to prepare yourself a lodging, or rather that you might do so in both places: for what he is going to do is uncertain. At the same time I have shown you that I am intimate with these men and admitted to their counsels And I don't see any reason for avoiding that. It is one thing to bear what one must bear, another to approve what one ought not to approve. Though for my part I do not know why I should not approve, with the exception of the first steps in the movement: for they were within the control of men's wills. I saw of course (you were abroad) that our friends desired war, whereas Caesar did not so much desire it as not fear it (wherefore the first steps were deliberate, the rest merely consequential), and that it must needs be that either this party or that should win. I know that you always lamented with me, when we saw, first, that frightful alternative — the destruction of one or the other army and leader; and, secondly, that the most dreadful evil of all was victory in a civil war, which indeed I dreaded even if it declared on the side of those whom I had joined. For the veriest do-nothings were uttering bloodthirsty threats, and they were offended both by your feelings and my words. At this moment, indeed, if our men had prevailed, they would have been exceedingly violent; for there were some who were very angry with us, as though forsooth we had adopted any resolution as to our own preservation which we had not decided to be good for them also; or as though it were more for the advantage of the state that they should fly to the protection of the beasts, than either die out of hand, or continue to live, if not with the best prospect, yet at least with some. But, it may be said, we are living in a distracted republic. Who denies it? But this is their look-out, who secured no resources for the various phases of life. Well, it was to arrive at this point that my preface has extended to a greater length than I intended. For as I have ever regarded you as a great man, because in the face of these storms you are nearly the only one safely in port, and are reaping the best fruits of philosophy-namely, to fix your mind upon and handle themes, the study and delight of which are to be preferred to all their employments and pleasures: so I consider these days you are spending at Tusculum to be a specimen of true life, and I would with pleasure resign all the wealth in the world to anybody on condition of being allowed, without the interruption of violence, to live a life like yours. And this, indeed, I imitate to the best of my ability, and with the utmost delight find repose in the studies which we both pursue. For who will grudge us this privilege, that, when our country either cannot or will not employ our services, we should return to that way of life, which many learned men have, perhaps wrongly, but still have thought was to be preferred even to public business? These studies, in the opinion of some eminent men, involve a kind of furlough from public duties: why then, when the state allows it, should we not enjoy them to the full? But I have more than fulfilled Caninius's demand; for he quite legitimately asked me for anything I knew which you didn't: but I am telling you what you know better than I myself who tell it. I will accordingly do what I was asked, that is, prevent your being ignorant of anything that is in your way connected with this crisis which I may hear. 226

§ Fam.9.16  CDLXX (Fam. IX, 16) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) TUSCULUM (JULY) I was charmed with your letter, in which, first of all, what I loved was the tenderness which prompted you to write, in alarm lest Silius should by his news have caused me any anxiety. About this news, not only had you written to me before — in fact twice, one letter being a duplicate of the other-showing me clearly that you were upset, but I also had answered you in full detail, in order that I might, as far as such a business and such a crisis admitted, free you from your anxiety, or at any rate alleviate it. But since you show in your last also how anxious you are about that matter-make up your mind to this, my dear Paetus: that whatever could possibly be accomplished by art — for it is not enough nowadays to contend with mere prudence, a sort of system must be elaborated-however, whatever could be done or effected towards winning and securing the goodwill of those men I have done, and not, I think, in vain. For I receive such attentions, such politenesses from all Caesar's favourites as make me believe myself beloved by them. For, though genuine love is not easily distinguished from feigned, unless some crisis occurs of a kind to test faithful affection by its danger, as gold in the fire, there are other indications of a general nature. But I only employ one proof to convince me that I am loved from the heart and in sincerity-namely, that my fortune and theirs is of such a kind as to preclude any motive on their part for pretending. In regard, again, to the man who now possesses all power, I see no reason for my being alarmed: except the fact that, once depart from law, everything is uncertain; and that nothing can be guaranteed as to the future which depends on another man's will, not to say caprice. Be that as it may, personally his feelings have in no respect been wounded by me. For in that particular point I have exhibited the greatest self-control. For, as in old times I used to reckon that to speak without reserve was a privilege of mine, since to my exertions the existence of liberty in the state was owing, so, now that that is lost, I think it is my duty to say nothing calculated to offend either his wishes or those of his favourites. But if I want to avoid the credit of certain keen or witty epigrams, I must entirely abjure a reputation for genius, which I would not refuse to do, if I could. But after all Caesar himself has a very keen critical faculty, and, just as your cousin Servius — whom I consider to have been a most accomplished man of letters — had no difficulty in saying: "This verse is not Plautus's, this is — "because he had acquired a sensitive ear by dint of classifying the various styles of poets and habitual reading, so I am told that Caesar, having now completed his volumes of bons mots, if anything is brought to him as mine, which is not so, habitually rejects it. This he now does all the more, because his intimates are in my company almost every day. Now in the course of our discursive talk many remarks are let fall, which perhaps at the time of my making them seem to them wanting neither in literary flavour nor in piquancy. These are conveyed to him along with the other news of the day: for so he himself directed. Thus it comes about that if he is told of anything besides about me, he considers that he ought not to listen to it. Wherefore I have no need of your Oenomaus, though your quotation of Accius's verses was very much on the spot. But what is this jealousy, or what have I now of which anyone can be jealous? But suppose the worst. I find that the philosophers, who alone in my view grasp the true nature of virtue, hold that the wise man does not pledge himself against anything except doing wrong; and of this I consider myself clear in two ways, first in that my views were most absolutely correct; and second because, when I found that we had not sufficient material force to maintain them, I was against a trial of strength with the stronger party. Therefore, so far as the duty of a good citizen is concerned, I am certainly not open to reproach. What remains is that I should not say or do anything foolish or rash against the men in power: that too, I think, is the part of the wise man. As to the rest — what this or that man may say that I said, or the light in which he views it, or the amount of good faith with which those who continually seek me out and pay me attention may be acting — for these things I cannot be responsible. The result is that I console myself with the consciousness of my uprightness in the past and my moderation in the present, and apply that simile of Accius's not to jealousy, but to fortune, which I hold — as being inconstant and frail — ought to be beaten back by a strong and manly soul, as a wave is by a rock. For, considering that Greek history is full of examples of how the wisest men endured tyrannies either at Athens or Syracuse, when, though their countries were enslaved, they themselves in a certain sense remained free — am I to believe that I cannot so maintain my position as not to hurt anyone's feelings and yet not blast my own character? I now come to your jests, since as an afterpiece to Accius's Oenomaus, you have brought on the stage, not, as was his wont, an Atellan play, but, according to the present fashion, a mime. What's all this about a pilot-fish, a denarius, and a dish of salt fish and cheese? In my old easy-going days I put up with that sort of thing: but times are changed. Hirtius and Dolabella are my pupils in rhetoric, but my masters in the art of dining. For I think you must have heard, if you really get all news, that their practice is to declaim at my house, and mine to dine at theirs. Now it is no use your making an affidavit of insolvency to me: for when you had some property, petty profits used to keep you a little too close to business; but as things are now, seeing that you are losing money so cheerfully, all you have to do, when entertaining me, is to regard yourself as accepting a "composition"; and even that loss is less annoying when it comes from a friend than from a debtor. Yet, after all, I don't require dinners superfluous in quantity: only let what there is be first-rate in quality and recherche. I remember you used to tell me stories of Phamea's dinner. Let yours be earlier, but in other respects like that. But if you persist in bringing me back to a dinner like your mother's, I should put up with that also. For I should like to see the man who had the face to put on the table for me what you describe, or even a polypus-looking as red as Iupiter Miniatus. Believe me, you won't dare. Before I arrive the fame of my new magnificence will reach you: and you will be awestruck at it. Yet it is no use building any hope on your hors d'oeuvre. I have quite abolished that: for in old times I found my appetite spoilt by your olives and Lucanian sausages. But why all this talk? Let me only get to you. By all means — for I wish to wipe away all fear from your heart — go back to your old cheese-and-sardine dish. The only expense I shall cause you will be that you will have to have the bath heated. All the rest according to my regular habits. What I have just been saying was all a joke. As to Selicius's villa, you have managed the business carefully and written most wittily. So I think I won't buy. For there is enough salt and not enough savour. 246

§ Fam.9.18  CDLXXI (Fam. IX, 18) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) TUSCULUM (JULY) Being quite at leisure in my Tusculan villa, because I had sent my pupils to meet him, that they might at the same time present me in as favourable a light as possible to their friend, I received your most delightful letter, from which I learnt that you approved my idea of having begun — now that legal proceedings are abolished and my old supremacy in the forum is lost — to keep a kind of school, just as Dionysius, when expelled from Syracuse, is said to have opened a school at Corinth. In short, I too am delighted with the idea, for I secure many advantages. First and foremost, I am strengthening my position in view of the present crisis, and that is of primary importance at this time. How much that amounts to I don't know: I only see that as at present advised I prefer no one's policy to this, unless, of course, it had been better to have died. In one's own bed, I confess it might have been, but that did not occur: and as to the field of battle, I was not there. The rest indeed-Pompey, your friend Lentulus, Afranius — perished ingloriously. But, it may be said, Cato died a noble death. Well, that at any rate is in our power when we will: let us only do our best to prevent its being as necessary to us as it was to him. That is what I am doing. So that is the first thing I had to say. The next is this: I am improving, in the first place in health, which I had lost from giving up all exercise of my lungs. In the second place, my oratorical faculty, such as it was, would have completely dried up, had I not gone back to these exercises. The last thing I have to say, which I rather think you will consider most important of all, is this: I have now demolished more peacocks than you have young pigeons) You there revel in Haterian law-sauce, I here in Hirtian hot-sauce. Come then, if you are half a man, and learn from me the maxims which you seek: yet it is a case of" a pig teaching Minerva." But it will be my business to see to that: as for you, if you can't find purchasers for your foreclosures and so fill your pot with denarii back you must come to Rome. It is better to die of indigestion here, than of starvation there. I see you have lost money: I hope these friends of yours have done the same. You are a ruined man if you don't look out. You may possibly get to Rome on the only mule that you say you have left, since you have eaten up your pack horse. Your seat in the school, as second master, will be next to mine: the honour of a cushion will come by-and-by.

§ Fam.7.33  CDLXXII (Fam. VII, 33) TO P. VOLUMNIUS EUTRAPELUS ROME (JULY) You don't lose much by not being present at my oratorical lectures. You say you would have been envious of Hirtius, if you had not loved him: you had no reason for being envious; unless it was of his own eloquence by any chance that you were envious rather than of his being my pupil. The fact is, my dearest Volumnius, I am either a complete failure, or feel myself to be so, now that those members of my set, by whose support (joined with your applause) I once flourished, are lost: so that if I ever did produce anything worthy of my reputation, let us sigh that, as Philoctetes says in Accius, "These arrows now are fleshed On winged not armed forms — all glory lost." But, after all, things will be more cheerful with me all round if you come: though you will come, as you understand without my telling you, to what I may call an immense bombardment of business. If I can once deal with this as I wish, I will really say a long good-bye to both forum and senate-house, and devote a great deal of time to you and our common friends, I mean your Cassius and our Dolabella — or rather I should call them both ours — who are fascinated with the same studies and find me a very indulgent listener. To carry this on we need your refined and polished judgment, and that deeper tinge of literature by which you often make me feel somewhat diffident of myself while speaking. For I have quite made up my mind, if only Caesar will either allow or order it, to lay aside that role in which I have often won even his approval, and to throw myself entirely into the obscurity of literature, and in company of other devotees of it to enjoy the most honourable kind of leisure. For you, I could have wished that you had not felt afraid of my being much bored with reading your letter, if' as you say, you chance to send me a somewhat long one; and I should like you henceforth to make up your mind that the longer a letter from you is, the better I shall like it.

§ Fam.9.20  CDLXXIII (Fam. IX, 20) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (AUGUST) I was doubly charmed by your letter, first because it made me laugh myself' and secondly because I saw that you could still laugh. Nor did I in the least object to being overwhelmed with your shafts of ridicule, as though I were a light skirmisher in the war of wits. What I am vexed at is that I have not been able, as I intended, to run over to see you: for you would not have had a mere guest, but a brother-in-arms. And such a hero! not the man whom you used to do for by the hors d'oeuvre. I now bring an unimpaired appetite to the egg, and so the fight is maintained right up to the roast veal. The compliments you used to pay me in old times — "What a contented person!" "What an easy guest to entertain! " — are things of the past. All my anxiety about the good of the state, all meditating of speeches to be delivered in the senate, all getting up of briefs I have cast to the winds. I have thrown myself into the camp of my old enemy Epicurus — not, however, with a view to the extravagance of the present day, but to that refined splendour of yours — I mean your old style when you had money to spend (though you never had more landed estate ). Therefore prepare! You have to deal with a man, who not only has a large appetite, but who also knows a thing or two. You are aware of the extravagance of your bourgeois gentilhomme. You must forget all your little baskets and your omelettes. I am now so far advanced in the art that I frequently venture to ask your friend Verrius and Camillus to dinner — what dandies! how fastidious! But think of my audacity: I even gave Hirtius a dinner, without a peacock however. In that dinner my cook could not imitate him in anything but the hot sauce. So this is my way of life nowadays: in the morning I receive not only a large number of "loyalists," who, how ever, look gloomy enough, but also our exultant conquerors here, who in my case are quite prodigal in polite and affectionate attentions. When the stream of morning callers has ebbed, I wrap myself up in my books, either writing or reading. There are also some visitors who listen to my discourses under the belief of my being a man of learning, because I am a trifle more learned than themselves. After that all my time is given to my bodily comfort. I have mourned for my country more deeply and longer than any mother for her only son. But take care, if you love me, to keep your health, lest I should take advantage of your being laid up to eat you out of house and home. For I am resolved not to spare you even when you are ill.

§ Fam.7.27  CDLXXIV (Fam. VII, 27) TO TITUS FADIUS GALLUS (IN EXILE) ROME (?) I am surprised at your finding fault with me, when etiquette forbids it. Even if there had been no such obstacle, you ought not to have done it. "Why I showed you attention in your consulship" — and then you go on to say that Caesar will certainly recall you. Well, you have a great deal to say, but nobody believes you. You allege that you stood for the tribuneship for my sake. I wish you had always been a tribune, then you would not have wanted anyone to intervene! You say that I dare not speak what I think, on the ground that I did not give a sufficiently spirited answer to a shameless request of yours. I write thus to show you that even in that peculiar style of composition, in which you desire to be forcible, you are nil. But if you had presented your grievance to me in a reasonable spirit, I should have cleared myself in your eyes with readiness and ease: for I am not ungrateful for what you have done, but vexed with what you have written. Now I do wonder that you think me, the cause of everyone else's freedom, to be but a slave. For if the information — as you call it — which you gave me was false, what do I owe you? If true, you are the best witness of what the Roman people owe me.

§ Fam.7.28  CDLXXV (Fam. VII, 28) TO MANIUS CURIUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME (AUGUST) I remember the time when I thought you foolish for associating with your friends over there rather than with us: for a residence in this city — while it was still a city at all — was much better suited to your culture and refinement than all the Peloponnesus put together, to say nothing of Patrae. Now, however, on the contrary you seem to me to have been long-sighted for having settled in Greece when things here were in a desperate condition, and at the present crisis not only to be wise for being abroad, but happy as well. And yet what man of any discernment can be happy at present? But what you, who could do so, have secured by the use of your feet-removal to a place "Where of the Pelopidae" (you know the rest)-I am getting by a different method. For, after giving myself up to the reception of my friends which is more crowded than it used to be, precisely because they imagine that in a citizen of honest sentiments they see a rare bird of good omen, I bury myself in my library. Accordingly, I am completing works of an importance which you will perhaps appreciate. For in a certain talk I had with you at your house, when you were finding fault with my gloom and despair, I understood you to say, that you could not recognize the old high spirit in my books. But, by Hercules, at that time I was mourning for the Republic — which by its services to me, and no less by mine to it, was dearer to me than my life. And even now, though not only is reason (which ought to be more powerful than anything) consoling me, but also time which cures even fools, yet I am nevertheless grieving that the general interests are in such a state of collapse, that no hope even is left of any future improvement. Not that in the present instance the fault is his, in whose power everything is — unless by any chance that very fact is not as it should be — but some things by accident and others by my own fault also have so fallen out, that complaint on my part for the past is barred. Hope for the future I see none. Therefore I return to what I said at first: you have left all this wisely, if you did so by design; luckily, if by accident.

§ Fam.9.19  CDLXXVI (Fam. IX, 19) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (AUGUST) What I you don't budge from your mischievous humour? You hint that Balbus was contented with very plain fare: your insinuation seems to be that when kings are so abstemious, much more ought mere consulars to be so. You don't know that I fished everything out of him; for he came straight from the city gate to my house — and I am not surprised that he did not prefer going to his own house, but that he didn't go to his own belle amie! However, my first three words were "How's our Paetus?" In answer he swore that he had never had a pleasanter visit anywhere. If you earned that compliment by your conversation, I will bring you a pair of ears no less discriminating: but if by your dainty fare, I beg you not to think stutterers worth more than men of eloquence. One thing after another stops me every day. But if I ever get myself sufficiently free to be able to come to your parts, I won't let you think that you haven't sufficient notice from me.

§ Fam.9.26  CDLXXVII (Fam. IX, 26) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (AUGUST?) I have just lain down to dinner at three o'clock, when I scribble a copy of this note to you in my pocket-book. You will say, "where?" With Volumnius Eutrapelus. One place above me is Atticus, one below Verrius, both friends of yours. Do you wonder that our slavery is made so gay? Well, what am I to do? I ask your advice as the pupil of a philosopher. Am I to be miserable, to torment myself? What should I get by that? And, moreover, how long? "Live with your books," say you. Well, do you suppose that I do anything else? Or could I have kept alive, had I not lived with my books? But even to them there is, I don't say a surfeit, but a certain limit. When I have left them, though I care very little about my dinner — the one problem which you put before the philosopher Dion — still, what better to do with my time before taking myself off to bed I cannot discover. Now listen to the rest. Below Eutrapelus lay Cytheris. At such a party as that, say you, was the famous Cicero, "To whom all looked with reverence, on whose face Greeks turned their eyes with wonder?" To tell you the truth, I had no suspicion that she would be there. But, after all, even the Socratic Aristippus himself did not blush when he was taunted with having Lais as his mistress: "Yes," quoth he, "Lais is my mistress, but not my master." It is better in Greek; you must make a translation yourself, if you want one. As for myself, the fact is that that sort of thing never had any attraction for me when I was a young man, much less now I am an old one. I like a dinner party. I talk freely there, whatever comes upon the tapis, as the phrase is, and convert sighs into loud bursts of laughter. Did you behave better in jeering at a philosopher and saying, when he invited anyone to put any question he chose, that the question you asked the first thing in the morning was: "Where shall I dine?" The blockhead thought that you were going to inquire whether there was one heaven or an infinite number! What did you care about that? "Well, but, in heaven's name — you will say to me — "was a dinner a great matter to you, and there of all places?" Well then, my course of life is this. Every day something read or written: then, not to be quite churlish to my friends, I dine with them, not only without exceeding the law, but even within it, and that by a good deal. So you have no reason to be terrified at the idea of my arrival. You will receive a guest of moderate appetite, but of infinite jest.

§ Fam.9.17  CDLXXVIII (Fam. IX, 17) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (AUGUST) Aren't you a ridiculous fellow for asking me what I think will be done about those municipal towns and lands, when our friend Balbus has been staying with you? As though I were likely to know what he doesn't, and as though, when I do know anything, it is not from him that I always learn it. Nay rather, if you love me, tell me what is going to be done about us: for you have had in your power one from whom you could have learnt it either sober or at any rate drunk. But for myself, I do not ask you for such information: in the first place, because I put it down as so much gain that I have been left alive for the last four years, if gain it is to be called, and if it is life to survive the Republic; and, in the second place, because I think that I myself know what is going to happen. For whatever the stronger chooses will be done, and the stronger will always be the sword. We ought, accordingly, to be content with any concession made to us, whatever it is; the man who was unable to endure this ought to have died. They are measuring the territory of Veii and Capena. This is not far from my Tusculan property. However, I don't at all alarm myself. I enjoy while I may: I only wish it may last. If that does not turn out to be the case, yet, since I in my courage and philosophy thought that nothing was better than to remain alive, I cannot but love the man by whose kindness I gained that object. But even if he should desire the continuance of a republic, such as perhaps he wishes and we ought all to pray for, he yet does not know how to do it: so completely has he entangled himself with many other people. But I am going too far. I forgot that I am writing to you. However, let me assure you of this, that not only I, who am not in his confidence, but even the leader himself is unable to say what is going to happen. For, while we are his slaves, he is a slave to circumstances: and so neither can he possibly be sure of what circumstances will demand, nor we of what he is designing. The reason that I did not send you this answer before was not because I am usually idle, especially in the matter of writing, but because, as I had no certainty about anything, I did not choose to cause you either anxiety from the hesitation, or hope from the confidence of my words. However, I will add this, which is the most absolute truth, that during the present crisis I have not heard a word about the danger you mention. In any case you will be bound, like the man of sense that you are, to hope for the best, prepare yourself for the worst, and bear whatever happens.

§ Fam.9.15  CDLXXIX (Fam. IX, 15) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I will answer two letters of yours: one which I received four days ago from Zethus, a second which your letter-carrier Phileros brought. From your former letter I gathered that you were much gratified by my anxiety about your health, and I rejoice that you have been convinced of it. But, believe me, you will never see it in its full reality from a letter. For though I perceive that I am being sought out and liked by a considerable number of people — a thing it is impossible for me to deny — there is not one of them all nearer to my heart than yourself. For that you love me, and have done so for a long while and without interruption, is indeed a great thing, or rather the greatest, but it is shared with you by many: but that you are yourself so lovable, so gracious, and so delightful in every way — that you have all to yourself. Added to that is your wit, not Attic, but more pungent than that of the Attics, good Roman wit of the true old city style. Now I — think what you will of it — am astonishingly attracted by witticisms, above all of the native kind, especially when I see that they were first infected by Latinism, when the foreign element found its way into the city, and now-a-days by the breeched and Transalpine tribes also, so that no trace of the old-fashioned style of wit can be seen. Accordingly when I see you, I seem — to confess the truth — to see all the Granii, the Lucilii, as well as the Crassi and Laelii. Upon my life, I have no one left but you in whom I can recognize any likeness of the old racy cheerfulness. And when to these Graces of wit there is added your strong affection for me, do you wonder that I have been so severely alarmed at so grave a blow to your health? In your second letter you say in self-defence that you did not advise me against the purchase at Naples, but recommended caution. You put it politely, and I did not regard it in any other fight. However, I gathered the same idea as I do from this letter, that you did not think it open to me to take the course which I thought I might-namely, to abandon politics here, not indeed entirely, but to a great extent. You quote Catulus and all that period. Where is the analogy? I did not myself at that time desire to absent myself for any length of time from the guardianship of the constitution: for I was sitting at the helm and holding the rudder; whereas now I have scarcely a place in the hold. Do you suppose the number of senatorial decrees will be any the less if I am at Naples? While I am at Rome and actually haunting the forum, senatorial decrees are written out in the house of your admirer, my intimate friend. And whenever it occurs to him, I am put down as backing a decree, and am informed of its having reached Armenia and Syria, professing to have been made in accordance with my vote, before any mention has been made of the business at all. And, indeed, I would not have you think that I am joking about this; for I assure you I have had letters from kings at the other end of the earth, thanking me for having voted for giving them the royal title, as to whom I was not only ignorant of their having been called kings, but of their very existence even. What, then, am I to do? After all, as long as this friend of ours — this guardian of morals — is here, I will follow your advice: but directly he goes away I am off to your mushrooms. If I have a house there, I will make the expenses allowed for a day by the sumptuary law last over ten days. But if I don't find anything to suit me, I have made up my mind to reside with you: for I know I could not please you more. I am beginning to despair of Sulla's house, as I told you in my last, but I have not, after all, quite given it up. Pray do what you suggest, inspect it with some builders. If there is no defect in walls or roof, the rest will meet my views very well.

§ Fam.13.68  CDLXXX (Fam. XIII, 68) TO P. SERVILIUS ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I was exceedingly obliged by your letter giving me an account of your voyages. For you indicated your recollection of our friendship, than which nothing could be more grateful to my feelings. For the future you will oblige me still more if you will write to me in a friendly way about public affairs, that is, the state of your province, and the details of your administration. Although I shall be sure to hear of these things from many people, considering your distinguished position, nevertheless I should be extremely glad to learn them from a letter of your own. For my part, I shall not often write to you my sentiments on imperial politics owing to the risk of a letter of that kind; but of what is actually being done I will frequently inform you Still I seem to hope that our colleague Caesar will be careful to see that we have a constitution of some kind. It was of great importance that you should take part in his deliberations: but if it is more for your interests, that is, better for your reputation, that you should govern Asia and protect a part of the empire which has suffered from misgovernment, I also am bound to prefer that course which will best serve you and your glory. For my part, I will attend with the greatest zeal and activity to whatever I think likely to be of importance to your position; and first and foremost I will guard with every kind of respectful attention your most illustrious father, as I am bound to do in view of our long standing friendship, of the kindnesses received by me from your family, and of his own noble character.

§ Fam.4.13  CDLXXXI (Fam. IV, 13) TO P. NIGIDIUS FIGULUS (IN EXILE) ROME (? SEPTEMBER) Though I have for some time past been on the look-out as to what I had best write to you, not only does no definite subject occur to me, but even the usual style of letter seems impossible. For of one department and habitual element in those letters, which we used to write in the days of our prosperity, the state of the times has violently deprived us, and fortune has ordained that I should be unable to write or so much as to think of anything of the sort. There only remained a certain gloomy and wretched style of letter, and one suited to the state of the times: that, too, fails me. In it there is bound to be either a promise of some assistance, or some consolation for your sorrow. I had no such promise to give: for, cast down by a similar blow of fortune, I am myself supporting my disasters by the aid of others, and it more frequently occurs to my mind to complain that I am living as I do, than to rejoice that I am alive. For although no signal injury has been inflicted upon me personally apart from others, and although it has never occurred to my mind to wish for anything in such circumstances which Caesar has not spontaneously offered me, yet nevertheless I am being so worn out with anxieties, that I regard myself as doing wrong in the mere fact of remaining alive. For I have lost not only many very intimate associates whom either death has snatched from me, or exile torn away, but also all the friends whose affection my former successful defence of the Republic, accomplished with your aid, had gained for me. I am in the very midst of their shipwrecked fortunes and the confiscation of their property; and I not only hear — which in itself would have been bad enough — but I have before my very eyes the sharpest of all pangs, the actual sight of the ruin of those men by whose aid in old times I quenched that conflagration. And in the city in which I once enjoyed such popularity, influence, and glory, I am now entirely deprived of all these. I retain, indeed, Caesar's supreme kind-ness: but that cannot make up for violence and a complete upset of the established order of things. Therefore, being shorn of all to which nature and taste and habit had accustomed me, I present no pleasant object either to others, as it seems to me, or to myself. For, being inclined by nature to be always actively employed in some task worthy of a man, I have now no scope, not merely for action, but even for thought. And I, who in old times was able to help men, who were either obscure or even guilty, am now unable to make even a kind promise to Publius Nigidius — the most eminent man of the day for learning and purity of character, who formerly enjoyed the highest popularity, and at any rate was a most affectionate friend to me. Therefore from that kind of letter I am forcibly debarred. The only thing left is to console you and to put before you some considerations by which I may endeavour to distract your thoughts from your afflictions. But, if anyone ever had, you have the gift in the highest degree of consoling either yourself or another. Therefore upon that part of the subject which proceeds from profound reason and philosophy I will not touch: I will leave it entirely to you. What is becoming to a brave and wise man, what solidity of character, what a lofty mind, what a past such as yours, what studies and accomplishments, in which you have been eminent from boyhood, demand of you — that you will see for yourself. I only undertake to assure you of what I am able to gather and perceive, from being at Rome and watching affairs anxiously and with attention: it is that you will not be long in the distressing circumstances in which you are at present; but that in those, nevertheless, which I share with you, you will perhaps be permanently. I think I perceive, to begin with, that the mind of him who is now all-powerful is inclined to grant your restoration. I am not writing at random. The less familiar I am with him, the more minute am I in my inquiries. It is in order that he may feel less difficulty in returning a sterner answer to those with whom he is still more angry, that he is as yet slower than he otherwise would have been in releasing you from your distressing position. His close friends, indeed, and those who are most liked by him, both speak and think of you with surprising kindness. Then there is in your favour the wish of the common people, or I should rather say a consensus of all classes. Even that which for the present, indeed, is most powerless of all, but which hereafter must necessarily be powerful, I mean the Republic itself, will with all the strength it may possess enforce your claim before long, believe me, upon those very men by whom it is now held in bondage. I come round, then, to the point of even making you a promise, which in the first instance I refrained from doing. For I will both open my arms to his most familiar friends, who are very fond of me and are much in my society, and will worm my way into his intimacy, which up to this time my scruples have closed to me, and I will at least follow up all the paths by which I shall think it possible to arrive at the object of our wishes. In all this department I will do more than I venture to write. And other things, which I know for certain to be at your service at the hands of many, are in the highest state of preparation on my side. There is no one article of property belonging to me which I would choose to have my own rather than yours. On this point, and indeed on the whole subject, I write the less liberally, because I prefer your hoping, what I feel sure will be the case, that you will be in the enjoyment of your own again. It remains for me to beg and beseech you to keep up your spirits to the highest pitch, and not to remember those maxims only which you have learnt from other great men, but those also which you have yourself produced by your genius and industry. If you review these, you will at once hope for the best, and endure philosophically what happens, of whatsoever kind it may be. But you know this better than I, or rather than anyone. For my part, whatever I understand to be to your interests I will attend to with the greatest zeal and activity, and will preserve the memory of what you did for me at the saddest period of my life.

§ Fam.4.15  CDLXXXII (Fam. IV, 15) TO GNAEUS PLANCIUS (EXILE IN CORCYRA) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I have received your very short note, from which I was not able to learn what I wanted to know, but did learn what I was sure of already. For I did not gather with how much courage you were bearing our common misfortunes: while the strength of your affection for me I had no difficulty in seeing. But the latter I had known before. If I had known the former, 'I would have adapted my letter to it. However, though I have already written all that I thought ought to be written, I yet considered that at such a crisis as this I ought briefly to warn you not to think that you are in any danger special to yourself. We are all in great danger, but yet in one that is common to us all. So you ought neither to demand a position peculiar to yourself and distinct, nor to refuse one in which we all share. Wherefore let us keep the same mutual regard as we always had; which I may hope in your case and guarantee in my own.

§ Fam.4.8  CDLXXXIII (Fam. IV, 8) TO M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (AT MITYLENE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I do not venture to advise a man of your consummate wisdom, nor to offer encouragement to a man of the highest spirit and the most conspicuous gallantry-certainly not to console him in any way whatever. For if you bear what has happened as lam told you do, I ought rather to congratulate you on your manliness than console your sorrow. But if these great disasters to the state are breaking your heart, I have no ingenuity to spare for finding consolations for you, when I cannot console myself. All that remains, therefore, for me to do is at every point so to display and guarantee my services, and to be in such a way ready to undertake whatever your friends may wish, as to show that I hold myself your debtor not only for everything that is within my power to do, but also for what is beyond it. Nevertheless, please to consider that in what follows I have given you a warning, or (if you like) expressed an opinion, or from affection for you have been unable to refrain from saying — that you, as I do myself, should make up your mind, if there is to be a republic at all, that the first place in it is your due in everybody's judgment as well as in actual fact, though you are necessarily yielding to the circumstances of the hour: but if there is none, that after all this is the place best fitted for living even in exile. For if we are seeking freedom, what place is free from the master's hand? But if all we want is Some place, no matter of what sort, what residence is pleasanter than one's own home? But believe me, even the man who now dominates everything favours men of talent: moreover, he opens his arms to high birth and lofty position, as far as circumstances and his own party needs allow. But I have said more than I intended. I return, therefore, to that one fact — that I am yours, and will be by the side of your friends, always provided that they are yours: if not, I will in any case satisfy the claims of our attachment and affection in all particulars. Good-bye.

§ Fam.4.7  CDLXXXIV (Fam. IV, 7) TO M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (AT MITYLENE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Though I am aware that as yet you have maintained a policy of a nature that I do not venture to rebuke-not that I do not myself disagree with it, but because I judge you to be so wise a man, that I do not presume to prefer my view to yours-nevertheless, both the antiquity of our friendship and your eminent affection for me, which I have known from your childhood, have urged me to write to you what I believed would make for your personal security, and thought was not inconsistent with your honour. I have a vivid recollection that you were wise enough to discern the first signs of these disasters long before they occurred, and that you administered the consulship with the utmost splendour and in the most loyal spirit. But I also was conscious of this — that you were not satisfied with the policy of the civil war, nor with Pompey's forces, nor the nature of his army, and were always deeply distrustful of it: in which sentiment I think you remember that I also shared. Accordingly, you did not take much part in active service, and I always strove not to do so. For we were not fighting with the weapons with which we might have prevailed-deliberation, weight of character, and the righteousness of our cause, in all of which we had the superiority — but with muscles and brute force, in which we were not his equals. Accordingly, we were beaten, or, if worth cannot really be beaten, at least we were crushed and rendered powerless. And in this no one can do otherwise than highly praise your resolution, in that with all hope of victory you cast aside all desire of keeping up the contest also; and showed that a wise man and a good citizen takes the first steps in a civil war with reluctance, but with pleasure declines taking the last. Those who did not adopt the same course as yourself I perceive to have split up into two classes. Either they endeavoured to renew the war — and these have betaken themselves to Africa: or, like myself, they trusted themselves to the victor. Your course was a kind of compromise between the two, since you perhaps regarded the second as cowardice, the first as blind obstinacy. I confess that by most people, or I should say by everybody, your plan has been judged to be wise, by many even magnanimous and courageous. But your policy, as it seems to me at least, has a certain limit, especially as in my opinion nothing is wanting to your being able to keep your entire fortune, except your own willingness to do so. For I have gathered that there is nothing else which causes him who is now all-powerful to feel any hesitation, except the fear that you would not regard it as a favour at all. As to which there is no occasion for me to say what I think, since my conduct speaks for itself. However, even if you had already made up your mind, that you preferred being absent from Rome to seeing what was repugnant to your feelings, yet you ought to have reflected that, wherever you were, you would be in the power of the man from whom you were fleeing. And even if he were likely to make no difficulty about allowing you to live in peace and freedom while deprived of property and country, you ought yet to have reflected whether you preferred living at Rome and in your own house, whatever the state of affairs, to living at Mitylene or Rhodes. But seeing that the power of the man whom we fear is so widely extended, that it has embraced the whole world, do you not prefer being in your own house without danger to being in another man's with danger? For my part, if I must face death, I would rather do so at home and in my native country, than in a foreign and alien land. This is the sentiment of all who love you, of whom the number is as great as your eminent and shining virtues deserve. We have also regard for your property, which we are unwilling to see scattered. For, though it can receive no injury destined to be lasting, because neither the present master of the Republic, nor the Republic itself, will allow it, yet I don't want to see an attack made by certain banditti upon your possessions: and who these are I would have ventured to write, had I not felt sure that you understand. Here the anxieties, nay, the copious and perpetual tears of one man, your excellent brother Gaius Marcellus, plead for your pardon: I come next him both in anxiety and sorrow, but in actual prayers am somewhat slow, because I have not the right of entree to Caesar, being myself in need of intercession. We have only the influence which the conquered have, yet in counsel and zeal we are not wanting to Marcellus. By your other relations my help is not asked. I am prepared for anything.

§ Fam.4.9  CDLXXXV (Fam. IV, 9) TO M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (AT MITYLENE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Though it is only a very few days ago that I gave Quintus Mucius a letter for you written at considerable length, in which I set forth in what state of mind I thought you ought to be, and what I thought you ought to do, yet, since your freedman Theophilus was starting, of whose fidelity and affection to you I had satisfied myself, I was unwilling that he should reach you without a letter from me. On the same considerations, then, as I did in my previous letter, I again and again exhort you, to make up your mind to become a resident member of the Republic, whatever its nature may be, at the earliest possible time. You will perhaps see many things disagreeable to your feelings, but not more after all than you daily hear. Moreover, you are not the man to be affected by the sense of sight alone, and to be less afflicted when you learn the same things by the ear, which indeed are usually even magnified by imagination. But — you object — you will yourself be obliged to say something you do not feel, or to do something you do not approve. To begin with, to yield to circumstances, that is to submit to necessity, has ever been held the part of a wise man: in the next place, things are not — as matters now stand at least — quite so bad as that. You may not be able, perhaps, to say what you think: you may certainly hold your tongue. For authority of every kind has been committed to one man. He consults nobody but himself, not even his friends. There would not have been much difference if he whom we followed were master of the Republic. Can we think that the man who in a time of war, when we were all united in the same danger, consulted only himself and a certain clique of wholly incompetent persons, was likely to be more communicative in the hour of victory, than he had been when the result was still uncertain? And do you think that a man who in your consulship would never be guided by your consummate wisdom, nor, when your brother was administering the consulship under your inspiration, ever condescended to consult you two, would now, if he were in sole power, be likely to want suggestions from us? Everything in civil war is wretched; of which our ancestors never even once had experience, while our generation has now had it repeatedly: but nothing, after all, is more wretched than victory itself, which, even if it fall to the better men, yet renders them more savage and ruthless, so that, even if they are not such by nature, they are compelled to become so by the necessity of the case. For a conqueror is forced, at the beck of those who won him his victory, to do many things even against his inclination. Were you not wont to foresee simultaneously with myself how bloody that victory was likely to be? Well, would you at that time also have absented yourself from your country for fear of seeing what you disapproved? "No," you will say, "for then I should have been in possession of wealth and my proper position." Ah, but it had been consistent with a virtue such as yours to regard your personal interests as among the most insignificant concerns, and to be more profoundly affected by those of the state. Again, what is to be the end of your present policy? For up to now your conduct is approved, and, as far as such a business admits of it, your good fortune also is commended: your conduct, because while you engaged in the first part of the war under compulsion, you showed your wisdom by refusing to follow it to the bitter end: your good fortune, because by an honourable retirement you have maintained both the dignity and the reputation of your character. Now, however, it is not right that you should feel any place more to your taste than your native land; nor ought you to love it less because it has lost some of its comeliness, but rather to pity it, and not deprive it of the light of your countenance also, when already bereft of many illustrious sons. Finally, if it was the sign of high spirit not to be a supplicant to the victor, is it not perhaps a sign of pride to spurn his kindness? If it was the act of a wise man to absent himself from his country, is it not perhaps a proof of insensibility not to regret her? And, if you are debarred from enjoying a public station, is it not perhaps folly to refuse to enjoy a private one? The crowning argument is this: even if your present mode of life is more convenient, you must yet reflect whether it is not less safe. The sword owns no law: but in foreign lands there is even less scruple as to committing a crime. I am personally so anxious for your safety, that in this respect I take rank with your brother Marcellus, or at any rate come next to him. It is your business to take measures for your own interests, civil rights, life, and property.

§ Fam.6.6  CDLXXXVI (Fam. VI, 6) TO AULUS CAECINA (IN EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I am afraid you may think me remiss in my attentions to you, which, in view of our close union resulting from many mutual services and kindred tastes, ought never to be lacking. In spite of that I fear you do find me wanting in the matter of writing. The fact is, I would have sent you a letter long ago and on frequent occasions, had I not, from expecting day after day to have some better news for you, wished to fill my letter with congratulation rather than with exhortations to courage. As it is, I shall shortly, I hope, have to congratulate you: and so I put off that subject for a letter to another time. But in this letter I think that your courage — which I am told and hope is not at all shaken-ought to be repeatedly braced by the authority of a man, who, if not the wisest in the world, is yet the most devoted to you: and that not with such words as I should use to console one utterly crushed and bereft of all hope of restoration, but as to one of whose rehabilitation I have no more doubt than I remember that you had of mine. For when those men had driven me from the Republic, who thought that it could not fall while I was on my feet, I remember hearing from many visitors from Asia, in which country you then were, that you were emphatic as to my glorious and rapid restoration. If that system, so to speak, of Tuscan augury which you had inherited from your noble and excellent father did not deceive you, neither will our power of divination deceive me; which I have acquired from the writings and maxims of the greatest savants, and, as you know, by a very diligent study of their teaching, as well as by an extensive experience in managing public business, and from the great vicissitudes of fortune which I have encountered. And this divination I am the more inclined to trust, from the fact that it never once deceived me in the late troubles, in spite of their obscurity and confusion. I would have told you what events I foretold, were I not afraid to be thought to be making up a story after the event. Yet, after all, I have numberless witnesses to the fact that I warned Pompey not to form a union with Caesar, and afterwards not to sever it. By this union I saw that the power of the senate would be broken, by its severance a civil war be provoked. And yet I was very intimate with Caesar, and had a very great regard for Pompey, but my advice was at once loyal to Pompey and in the best interests of both alike. My other predictions I pass over; for I would not have Caesar think that I gave Pompey advice, by which, if he had followed it, Caesar himself would have now been a man of illustrious character in the state indeed, and the first man in it, but yet not in possession of the great power he now wields. I gave it as my opinion that he should go to Spain; and if he had done so, there would have been' no civil war at all. That Caesar should be allowed to stand for the consulship in his absence I did not so much contend to be constitutional, as that, since the law had been passed by the people at the instance of Pompey himself when consul, it should be done. The pretext for hostilities was given. What advice or remonstrance did I omit, when urging that any peace, even the most inequitable, should be preferred to the most righteous war? My advice was overruled, not so much by Pompey — for he was affected by it — as by those who, relying on him as a military leader, thought that a victory in that war would be highly conducive to their private interests and personal ambitions. The war was begun without my taking any active part in it; it was forcibly removed from Italy, while I remained there as long as I could. But honour had greater weight with me than fear: I had scruples about failing to support Pompey's safety, when on a certain occasion he had not failed to support mine. Accordingly, overpowered by a feeling of duty, or by what the loyalists would say, or by a regard for my honour — whichever you please — like Amphiaraus in the play, I went deliberately, and fully aware of what I was doing, "to ruin full displayed before my eyes." In this war there was not a single disaster that I did not foretell. Therefore, since, after the manner of augurs and astrologers, I too, as a state augur, have by my previous predictions established the credit of my prophetic power and knowledge of divination in your eyes, my prediction will justly claim to be believed. Well, then, the prophecy I now give you does not rest on the flight of a bird nor the note of a bird of good omen on the left — according to the system of our augural college — nor from the normal and audible pattering of the corn of the sacred chickens. I have other signs to note; and if they are not more infallible than those, yet after all they are less obscure or misleading. Now omens as to the future are observed by me in what I may call a two fold method: the one I deduce from Caesar himself, the other from the nature and complexion of the political situation. Caesar's characteristics are these: a disposition naturally placable and clement — as delineated in your brilliant book of "Grievances " — and a great liking also for superior talent, such as your own. Besides this, he is relenting at the expressed wishes of a large number of your friends, which are well-grounded and inspired by affection, not hollow and self-seeking. Under this head the unanimous feeling of Etruria will have great influence on him. Why, then — you may ask — have these things as yet had no effect? Why, because he thinks if he grants you yours, he cannot resist the applications of numerous petitioners with whom to all appearance he has juster grounds for anger. "What hope, then," you will say, "from an angry man?" Why, he knows very well that he will draw deep draughts of praise from the same fountain, from which he has been already — though sparingly-bespattered. Lastly, he is a man very acute and farseeing: he knows very well that a man like you — far and away the greatest noble in an important district of Italy, and in the state at large the equal of any one of your generation, however eminent, whether in ability or popularity or reputation among the Roman people-cannot much longer be debarred from taking part in public affairs. He will be unwilling that you should, as you would sooner or later, have time to thank for this rather than his favour. So much for Caesar. Now I will speak of the nature of the actual situation. There is no one so bitterly opposed to the cause, which Pompey undertook with better intentions than provisions, as to venture to call us bad citizens or dishonest men. On this head I am always struck with astonishment at Caesar's sobriety, fairness, and wisdom. He never speaks of Pompey except in the most respectful terms. "But," you will say, "in regard to him as a public man his actions have often been bitter enough." Those were acts of war and victory, not of Caesar. But see with what open arms he has received us! Cassius he has made his legate; Brutus governor of Gaul; Sulpicius of Greece; Marcellus, with whom he was more angry than with anyone, he has restored with the utmost consideration for his rank. To what, then, does all this tend? The nature of things and of the political situation will not suffer, nor will any Constitutional theory — whether it remain as it is or is changed — permit, first, that the civil and personal position of all should not be alike when the merits of their cases are the same; and, secondly, that good men and good citizens of unblemished character should not return to a state, into which so many have returned after having been condemned of atrocious crimes. That is my prediction. If I had felt any doubt about it I would not have employed it in preference to a consolation which would have easily enabled me to support a man of spirit. It is this. If you had taken up arms for the Republic — for so you then thought — with the full assurance of victory, you would not deserve special commendation. But if; in view of the uncertainty attaching to all wars, you had taken into consideration the possibility of our being beaten, you ought not, while fully prepared to face success, to be yet utterly unable to endure failure. I would have urged also what a consolation the consciousness of your action, what a delightful distraction in adversity, literature ought to be. I would have recalled to your mind the signal disasters not only of men of old times, but of those of our own day also, whether they were your leaders or your comrades. I would even have named many cases of illustrious foreigners: for the recollection of what I may call a common law and of the conditions of human existence softens grief. I would also have explained the nature of our life here in Rome, how bewildering the disorder, how universal the chaos: for it must needs cause less regret to be absent from a state in disruption, than from one well-ordered. But there is no occasion for anything of this sort. I shall soon see you, as I hope, or rather as I clearly perceive, in enjoyment of your civil rights. Meanwhile, to you in your absence, as also to your son who is here — the express image of your soul and person, and a man of unsurpassable firmness and excellence — I have long ere this both promised and tendered practically my zeal, duty, exertions, and labours: all the more so now that Caesar daily receives me with more open arms, while his intimate friends distinguish me above everyone. Any influence or favour I may gain with him I will employ in your service. Be sure, for your part, to support yourself not only with courage, but also with the brightest hopes.

§ Fam.6.13  CDLXXXVII (Fam. VI, 13) TO Q. LIGARIUS (IN EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Although in your present circumstances I was bound, in view of our friendship, to write you some word either of consolation or support, yet up to this time I had omitted doing so, because I did not think myself able by mere words either to soften or remove your grief. When, however, I began to entertain a strong hope that it would not be long before we had you here in full enjoyment of your civil rights, I could not refrain from declaring my opinion and wishes to you. To begin with, then, I will say this, of which I have a clear knowledge and full perception — that Caesar will not be very obdurate to you. For circumstances, as well as the lapse of time and public opinion, and — as it seems to me — even his own natural disposition, daily render him more indulgent. And that I not only perceive in the case of others, but I am also told it in regard to yourself by his most intimate friends, to whom, ever since the news from Africa first arrived, I have never ceased in conjunction with your brothers to make representations. Thanks indeed to their virtue and piety and their unique affection for you, their constant and unremitting care for your safety are having such good effect, that I think there is now no indulgence that Caesar himself will not grant you. But if this comes to pass somewhat less quickly than we wish, the reason is that, owing to the multiplicity of his business, interviews with him have been somewhat difficult to obtain. At the same time, being unusually angered at the resistance in Africa, he seems resolved to keep those in suspense somewhat longer, by whom he considers himself to have been involved in the worry of a more protracted struggle. But even this, I understand, he daily regards in a more forgiving and placable spirit. Wherefore, believe me, and remember that I said so to you, that you will not be much longer in your distressing position. Having told you my opinion, I will show what my wishes are in regard to you by deeds rather than by words. If I were as powerful as I ought to be in a Republic, to which my services have been such as you estimate them, you certainly would not have now been in your present disadvantageous position: for the same cause has ruined my influence which has brought your safety into danger. But nevertheless, whatever the shadow of my old position, whatever the remains of my popularity shall be able to effect, all my zeal, advice, efforts, and fidelity shall be ever at the service of your most excellent brothers. Be sure, on your part, to keep the brave spirit which you have always kept. First, for the reasons which I have mentioned: and, secondly, because your wishes and sentiments about the Republic have ever been such as not only to warrant a hope of prosperity now, but even, if everything goes wrong, to make it after all incumbent on you, from a consciousness of your actions and policy, to bear whatever happens with the greatest resolution and spirit.

§ Fam.6.12  CDLXXXVIII (Fam. VI, 12) TO T. AMPIUS BALBUS (RECALLED FROM EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I congratulate you, my dear Balbus, and with sincerity. Yet I am not so foolish as to wish you to indulge in a passing and groundless exultation, and then to be suddenly depressed and rendered so prostrate, that nothing could afterwards raise your spirits or restore your equanimity. I have pleaded your cause with greater openness than was quite consistent with my present position. For the unfortunate fact itself of my influence having been weakened was overcome by my affection for you and my unbroken love towards you, which has always been most carefully cultivated by yourself. Everything that was promised in regard to your return and restoration has been fulfilled, and is now secure and fully ratified. I have seen it with my own eyes, have had full information, have been personally a witness to it. For very opportunely I have all Caesar's intimate friends so closely knit to me by association and kindly feeling, that next to him they look upon me as first. Pansa, Hirtius, Balbus, Oppius, Matius, all make it clear in this matter that they have a unique regard for me. But if I had had to do it by my own exertions, I should not have regretted having made the attempt in whatever way the exigencies of the situation demanded. But I have not, in fact, made any special concessions to the situation: my old intimacy with all these men comes in here, with whom I have never ceased urging your claims. But Pansa, who is exceedingly zealous on your behalf and anxious to oblige me, I have regarded as my mainstay in this business, as being influential with Caesar no less from his character than from personal predilection. Tillius Cimber, again, has quite satisfied me. Yet, after all, the petitions which have weight with Caesar are not those which proceed from personal considerations, but those which are dictated by duty: and, as that was the case with Cimber, he had more influence than he could have had in anyone else's behalf. The passport has not been issued at once, owing to the amazing rascality of certain persons, who would have been bitterly annoyed at a pardon being granted to you, whom that party call the "bugle of the civil war" — and a good many observations to the same effect are made by them, as though they were not positively glad of that war having occurred. Wherefore it seemed best to carry on the business with Some secrecy, and by no means to let it get abroad that your affair was settled. But it will be so very shortly, and I have no doubt that by the time you read this letter the matter will have been completed. The fact is that Pansa, a man whose character and word can be trusted, not only assured me of it, but also undertook that he would very quickly get the passport. Nevertheless, I resolved that this account should be sent you, because from Eppuleia's report and Ampia's tears I gathered that you were less confident than your letter would suggest Moreover, they thought that in their absence from your side you would be in much more serious anxiety. Wherefore I thought it of very great importance, for the sake of alleviating your pain and sorrow, that you should have stated for certain what was in fact certain. You know that hitherto it has been my habit to write to you rather in the tone of one consoling a man of courage and wisdom, than as holding out any sure hope of restoration beyond that which, in my opinion, was to be expected from the Republic itself as soon as the present excitement died down. Remember your writings, in which you always showed me a spirit at once great and firmly prepared to endure whatever might happen. Nor was I surprised at that, since I remembered that you had been engaged in public affairs from your earliest youth, and that your terms of office had coincided with the most dangerous crises in the safety and fortunes of the community, and that you entered on this very war not solely with the idea of being in prosperity if victorious, but also, if it so happened, of bearing it philosophically if beaten. In the next place, since you devote your time to recording the deeds of brave men, you ought to think yourself bound to abstain from doing anything to prevent your showing yourself exactly like those whom you commend. But this is a style of talk better suited to the position from which you have now escaped: for the present merely prepare yourself to endure with us the state of things here. If I could find any remedy for that, I would impart the same to you.. But our one refuge is philosophy and literature, to which we have always been devoted. In the time of our prosperity these seemed only to be an enjoyment, now they are our salvation also. But, to return to what I said at first, I have no doubt of everything having been accomplished in the matter of your restoration and return.

§ 46.489  CDLXXXIX (Fam. VI, 10a) TO TREBIANUS (IN EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I would have sent you a letter before, if I had been able to hit upon the best sort to write: for at such a crisis the duty of friends is either to console or to make promises. I did not offer consolation, because I was told by many of the fortitude and wisdom with which you were bearing the hardship of the present situation, and how thoroughly you were consoled by the consciousness of your actions and policy. If that is the case, you are reaping a rich reward of your excellent studies, in which I know that you have ever been engaged, and I exhort you again and again to continue this line of conduct. At the same time, see here! You are a man deeply versed in what is recorded not only of particular examples, but in ancient history generally, while I am not quite ignorant of them either; but, though less deeply read than I could wish, I have had an even greater experience than I could have desired in actual affairs and practical business. Well, I pledge my word to you, that this indignation and this injurious treatment will not last long. For, in the first place, the man himself who has the chief power appears to me to be daily inclining insensibly towards just views and natural equity; and, in the second place, the merits of our cause itself are of such a kind, that It must necessarily revive and be renewed along with the Republic, which cannot possibly be kept down for ever. In fact, every day something is done in a spirit of greater Clemency and liberality than we feared would be the case. And since such things depend upon shifting circumstances, often minute, I will look out for every chance, and will not pass over any opportunity of helping and relieving you. Accordingly, that second style of letter which I mentioned will daily, I hope, become easier to adopt-enabling me to make promises also. That I should prefer doing practically rather than in mere words. I would have you be convinced of this — that you have more friends than others who are and have been in the same misfortune as yourself, as far at least as I have been able to ascertain; and that I yield to no one of them. Be sure you keep up a brave and lofty spirit. That depends on yourself alone: what depends on fortune will be guided by circumstances and provided for by prudent measures on our part.

§ 46.490  CDXC (Fam. VI, 10b) TO TREBIANUS (IN EXILE) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Of the value I feel and always have felt for you, and of the value which I know you feel for me, I am myself the witness. Two things cause me as much anxiety as my misfortunes always caused you. The first is your policy, or perhaps I should say your misfortune, in remaining too long in the prosecution of a civil war; the second, that the recovery of your property and position is slower than is fair and than I could have wished. Accordingly, I have opened my whole heart to Postumulenus, Sestius, and (most frequently) to our friend Atticus, and recently to your freedman Theudas, and have repeated to them separately on several occasions, that by whatever means I could I desired to do all that you and your sons could wish. And I would have you write and tell your family that, as far at least as it lies in my power, they should regard my efforts, advice, property, and fidelity as at their service for all purposes. If my influence and favour were as great as they ought to be in a state which I have served so well, you too would now be what you were, worthy in the highest degree of any rank, and at least easily first of your own ordo. But, since at the same time and in the same cause we have both of us lost our position, the things mentioned above, which are still mine to promise, and those also which I seem to myself to be partially retaining as reliques, so to speak, of my old rank-these I hereby promise you. For Caesar himself; as I have been able to gather by many circumstances, is not estranged from me, and nearly all his most intimate friends, bound to me as it happens by important services rendered by me in the past, are constant in their attentions and visits to me. Accordingly, if I find any opening for mooting the subject of your fortunes, that is, of your restoration to civil rights, on which everything depends — and I am daily more induced to hope for it from what these men say — I will do so personally and exert myself to the uttermost. It is not necessary to enter into details: I tender you my zeal and goodwill without reserve. But it is of great importance to me that all your friends should — as they may by a letter from you — know this, that everything which is Cicero's is at the service of Trebianus. To the same effect is it that they should believe that there is nothing too difficult for me to undertake with pleasure for you.

§ Fam.12.17  CDXCI (Fam. XII, 17) TO Q. CORNIFICIUS (IN THE EAST) ROME (SEPTEMBER) Cicero's compliments to his colleague Cornificius. I am exceedingly gratified by your remembrance of me as indicated by your letter. I beg you to retain it, not because I have any doubt of your constancy, but because such is the customary request. We have had news of some disturbances in Syria; and as they are nearer you than me, I am more concerned at them for your sake than for my own. At Rome, though there is the most profound tranquillity, you would prefer to have some salutary business of the right sort on foot. And I hope it will be so, for I see that Caesar is anxious for it. Allow me to inform you that, seizing upon what I venture to call the opportunity of your absence and the greater freedom that it gives me, I am writing with more than usual boldness: and the rest, indeed, are perhaps such as even you would allow to pass; but the last thing I wrote was "On the best Style of Speech," on which subject I have often suspected that your taste differed somewhat from mine, though not more than a learned man might differ somewhat from another who was also not without some learning. To this book I should like you to give the support of your approval, if possible from a sincere feeling, but if not at least out of friendship. I will tell your people that, if they choose, they may copy it out and send it to you. For I think that, even if you don't quite agree with its contents, yet, in the lonely spot in which you now are, whatever is produced by me will give you some pleasure. You recommend your reputation and political position to my care. You follow the general fashion in so doing; but I would have you believe both that I consider the affection between us, which I understand to be mutual, to have a supreme claim upon me; and that my opinion as to your supreme ability, your devotion to the highest learning, and your prospect of the most exalted rank is such that I class no one above you and put very few on an equality with you.

§ Fam.4.3  CDXCII (Fam. IV, 3) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME (OCTOBER OR NOVEMBER) Many daily report to me that you are in a state of great anxiety, and in the midst of miseries affecting all alike are suffering, as it were, a special personal sorrow. Though not surprised at this, and to a certain extent sharing in it myself, yet I am sorry that a man of your all but unequalled wisdom does not rather feel pleasure in his own blessings, than vexation at other people's misfortunes. For myself; though I do not yield to anyone in sorrow experienced from the ruin and destruction of the constitution, yet I now find many Sources of consolation, and above all in the consciousness of the policy which I pursued. For far in advance I foresaw the coming storm, as it were from a watchtower, and that not altogether spontaneously, but much more owing to your warnings and denunciations. For, though I was absent during the greater part of your consulship, yet in spite of that absence I was well informed of your sentiments in taking precautions against and predicting this disastrous war, and I was myself present in the first period of your consulship, when, after passing in review all the civil wars, you warned the senate in the most impressive terms, both to fear those they remembered, and to feel assured, since the last generation had been so cruel — to an extent up to that time unprecedented in the Republic — that whoever thenceforth overpowered the Republic by arms would be much more difficult to endure. For what is done on a precedent, they Consider as even legally justifiable: but they add and Contribute something, or rather a great deal, of their own to it. Wherefore you must remember that those who have not followed your authority and advice have fallen by their own folly, when they might have been saved by prudence like yours. You will say: "What consolation is that to me in the midst of such gloom and what I may call the ruins of the Republic?" Certainly it is a sorrow scarce admitting of consolation: so complete is the loss and the hopelessness of recovery. But, after all, both in Caesar's judgment and the people's estimate your righteousness, wisdom, and lofty character shine out like some torch when all the rest have gone out. This ought to go a long way towards alleviating your unhappiness. As to absence from your family, that should be the less distressing to you from the fact that you are at the same time absent from many severe annoyances. All of these I would have now mentioned in detail, had I not scrupled to enlighten you on certain particulars, from not seeing which you appear to me to be in a happier position than we who see them. I think that any consolation from me is properly confined to your being informed by a very affectionate friend of those facts by which your uneasiness could be relieved. Other sources of consolation, not unknown to me nor the least significant-indeed, as I think, by far the greatest — are centred in yourself: and by daily testing them I so completely recognize their soundness that they seem to me to be positively life-giving. Again, I recall the fact that from the earliest dawn of manhood you have been most absolutely devoted to all kinds of philosophical study, and have with the utmost zeal and care learnt all the maxims of the wisest men which concern a right conduct of life. These indeed are useful as well as delightful, even in the highest state of prosperity: but in such times as these we have nothing else to give us peace of mind. I will not be in any way presumptuous, nor exhort a man so richly endowed with professional knowledge and natural ability, to return to those arts to which, from the earliest period of your life, you have devoted your industry. I will only say, what I hope you think to be right, that for myself, seeing that for the art to which I had devoted myself there was now no place either in forum or senate-house, I have bestowed my every thought and every effort on philosophy. For your professional knowledge — eminent and unrivalled as it is — no sphere much better has been left than for mine. Wherefore, though I do not presume to advise you, I have persuaded myself that you also were engaged in pursuits which, even if they were not exactly profitable yet served to withdraw the mind from anxiety. Your son Servius indeed is engaged in all liberal studies, and especially in those in which I have mentioned that I find peace of mind, with conspicuous success. In my affection for him in fact I yield to no one in the world but yourself, and he repays me with gratitude. In this matter he thinks, as one may easily see, that in showing me attention and regard, he is at the same time doing what will give you the greatest pleasure.

§ Fam.4.4  CDXCIII (Fam. IV, 4) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME (OCTOBER) I ACCEPT your excuse for having frequently sent me a letter in duplicate, but I accept it only so far as you attribute to the carelessness or untrustworthiness of those who take them from you that they do not reach me: that part of your excuse in which you say that you frequently send me letters containing the same words from "poverty of language" — that is your expression — I neither understand nor acknowledge. And I myself, whom you declare in joke (as I take it) to possess a rich store of language, admit that I am not very badly off for words: for there is no occasion for "mock-modesty": yet I too — and that without "mock-modestly" — easily yield to the refinement and dainty simplicity of your style. As to your policy, mentioned in your letter, in not de clining this command of Achaia, as I always had approved of it, much more did I do so after reading your last letter. For all the reasons which you mention are thoroughly sound, and in the highest degree worthy of your character and wisdom. As to your thinking that the matter has turned out otherwise than you expected, in that I do not at all agree with you. The fact is this: the disorganization and confusion are so great, the general dilemma and collapse caused by a most shocking war are so complete, that each man thinks the place where he happens to be the most wretched in the world. That is why you feel dissatisfied with your policy, and why only we who are still at home appear to you to be happy: while on the contrary to us you seem, not indeed entirely free from distress, but happy in comparison with ourselves. And in fact your lot is better than ours in this: you venture to say in your letter what is giving you pain; we cannot do even that much safely. Nor is this the fault of the victor, whose moderation cannot be surpassed, but of the victory itself, which in the case of civil wars is always offensive. In one point I have had the better of you — that I knew of the recall of your colleague Marcellus a little before you did; and also, by Hercules, that I saw how that matter was actually managed. For be assured that since these unhappy events, that is, since the appeal to arms was begun, nothing else has been transacted with any proper dignity. For, in the first place, Caesar himself, after inveighing against the "bitter spirit" shown by Marcellus — for that was the term he used — and having commended in the most complimentary terms your fairness as well as your wisdom, all on a sudden unexpectedly concluded by saying that "he would not refuse a request of the senate for Marceflus, even in view of the character of the individual." In the next place, the senate had arranged, as soon as the case of Marcellus had been mentioned by L. Piso, and Gaius Marcellus had thrown himself at Caesar's feet, that it should rise en masse and approach Caesar in a suppliant attitude. Ask no questions: this day appeared to me to be so fair that I seemed to be seeing some shadow of a reviving Republic. Accordingly, when all who were called up before had moved a vote of thanks to Caesar, except Volcatius — for he said that if he had been in Caesar's place he would not have done it-I, when called on, abandoned my resolution. For I had determined, not, by Hercules, from lack of interest, but because I missed my old position in the house, to maintain unbroken silence. This resolution of mine gave way before Caesar's magnanimity and the senate's display of devotion. I therefore delivered a speech of thanks to Caesar at some length, and I am afraid that I have robbed myself of an honourable abstention from business in other cases as well, which was my one consolation in misfortune. However, since I have avoided offending him, who perhaps would have thought, if I never opened my mouth, that I regarded the constitution as in abeyance, I will do this without transgressing the bounds of moderation; or rather I shall keep some way this side of them, so as to satisfy his wishes without infringing upon my literary employments. For, though from my earliest youth every branch of study and liberal learning, and above all philosophy has been a delight to me, yet this taste grows stronger daily: partly, I presume, because my time of life is, now at its full maturity for wisdom, and partly owing to the .corruption of the times, which makes everything else incapable of relieving my mind of its sorrows. From a similar pursuit I gather from your letter that you are being distracted by business. But, after all, by this time the night hours will help you somewhat. Your, or rather our, Servius is exceedingly attentive to me; and I am charmed not only with his universal integrity and the remarkable excellence of his character, but also by his devotion to study and learning. He often discusses with me whether you should stay where you are or quit your province. At present my opinion is that we should do nothing except Just what Caesar appears to wish. Things are in such a state that, supposing you to be at Rome, nothing could possibly give you any pleasure except your own family. As for the rest, the best feature in the situation is Caesar himself: all else is of such a kind, that, if you must do one or the other, you would prefer hearing to seeing them. This advice of mine is not at all consonant with my feelings, for I long to see you, but I am consulting for your own interests.

§ Fam.4.11  CDXCIV (Fam. IV, 11) MARCUS MARCELLUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) MITYLENE (OCTOBER) That your influence has ever had the greatest weight with me everything that has occurred has given you reason to know, but nothing so clearly as the recent transaction. For though C. Marcellus, my very affectionate cousin, not only advised me, but besought me in moving terms, he failed to persuade me. It was only your letter that induced me to follow the advice that you and he gave in preference to every other. Your letters describe to me the nature of the debate in the senate. Though your congratulation is exceedingly acceptable to me, because it proceeds from the kindest of hearts, yet there is one thing still more delightful and gratifying to me — namely, that while I have so few friends, relations, or connexions to take a sincere interest in my safety, I have had reason to know that you desire my company and have shown in a practical way an unparalleled devotion to my interest. Everything else is as you say. And considering the state of the times, I was well content to be out of it ill. I take the truth, indeed, to be that without the kind-ness of such gallant men and true friends no one, whether in adversity or prosperity, can live a real life. Accordingly, I congratulate myself on this. But for yourself, I will prove to you in a practical manner that you have been loyal to a man who loves you most deeply.

§ Fam.9.21  CDXCV (Fam. IX, 21) TO PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (ABOUT OCTOBER) You don't say so! You think yourself a madman for imitating the thunder of my eloquence, as you call it? You certainly would have been beside yourself if you had failed to do so: but since you even beat me at it, you ought to jeer at me rather than at yourself. So you had no need of that quotation from Trabea, rather the fiasco was mine. But, after all, what do you think of my style in letters? Don't I talk with you in the vulgar tongue? Why, of course one doesn't write always in the same style. For what analogy has a letter with a speech in court or at a public meeting? Nay, even as to speeches in court, it is not my practice to handle all in the same style. Private causes and such as are of slight importance we plead in simpler language; those that affect a man's civil existence or reputation, of course, in a more ornate style: but letters it is our custom to compose in the language of everyday life. Well, but letting that pass, how did it come into your head, my dear Paetus, to say that there never was a Papirius who was not a plebeian? For, in fact, there were patrician Papirii, of the lesser houses, of whom the first was L. Papirius Mugillanus, censor with L. Sempronius Atratinus — having already been his colleague in the consulship — in the 312th year of the city. But in those days they were called Papisii. After him thirteen sat in the curule chair before L. Papirius Crassus, who was the first to drop the form Papisius. This man was named dictator, with L. Papirius Cursor as Master of the Horse, in the 415th year of the city, and four years afterwards was consul with Kaeso Duilius. Cursor came next to him, a man who held a very large number of offices; then comes L. Masso, who rose to the aedileship; then a number of Massones. The busts of these I would have you keep — all patricians. Then follow the Carbones and Turdi. These latter were plebeians, whom I opine that you may disregard. For, except the Gaius Carbo who was assassinated by Damasippus, there has not been one of the Carbones who was a good and useful citizen. We knew Gnaeus Carbo and his brother the wit: were there ever greater scoundrels? About the one who is a friend of mine, the son of Rubrius, I say nothing. There have been those three brothers Carbo — Gaius, Gnaeus, Marcus. Of these, Marcus, a great thief, was condemned for malversation in Sicily on the accusation of Publius Flaccus: Gaius, when accused by Lucius Crassus, is said to have poisoned himself with cantharides; he behaved in a factious manner as tribune, and was also thought to have assassinated Publius Africanus. As to the other, who was put to death by my friend Pompey at Lilybaeum, there was never, in my opinion, a greater scoundrel. Even his father, on being accused by M. Antonius, is thought to have escaped condemnation by a dose of shoemaker's vitriol. Wherefore my opinion is that you should revert to the patrician Papirii: you see what a bad lot the plebeians were.

§ Fam.6.14  CDXCVI (Fam. VI, 14) TO Q. LIGARIUS (IN EXILE) ROME, 26 NOVEMBER: I assure you that I am employing every effort and all my care and zeal in securing your recall. For, to say nothing of the fact that I have always been deeply attached to you, the signal loyalty and love of your brothers, who have the same place as yourself in the warmest feelings of my heart, suffer me to neglect no task or opportunity of displaying my fidelity and zeal towards you. But what I am doing and have done for you, I prefer your learning from their letters rather than from mine. But what my hopes are, or what I feel confident of, and consider as certain in regard to your recall, that I wish you to be informed of by myself. For if there is anyone who is nervous in matters of moment and danger, and who is always more inclined to fear a reverse than to hope for success, I am that man, and if it is a fault, I confess that I am not without it. However, on the fifth day before the Kalends of the first intercalary month, I went at the request of your brothers to wait on Caesar at his morning reception, and endured all the humiliation and bore of securing an entree and an inter-view with him. When your brothers had thrown themselves at his feet, and I had said what the merits of the case and your position demanded, I went away with a conviction — gathered not only from the tone of Caesar's reply, which was gentle and courteous, but also from his eyes and expression, and many other signs besides, which it was easier to observe than it is to write — that I need have no doubt about your recall. Wherefore be sure you keep up your spirit and courage, and as you bore the stormiest times with philosophy, meet calmer weather with cheerfulness. However, I will attend to your business as though it were one of the most difficult possible: and on your behalf, as I have already done, I will with all the pleasure in life present my supplications not only to Caesar, but also to all his friends, whom I have learnt to be warmly attached to myself. Good-bye.

§ Fam.7.4  DI (Fam. VII, 4) TO M. MARIUS (AT HIS VILLA NEAR STABIAE) CUMAE, 16 NOVEMBER: ON the 16th I came to my Cuman villa along with your friend Libo, or rather I should say our friend. I think of going on at once to my Pompeian, but I will give you notice beforehand. I always wish you to be in good health, but especially while I am here. For you see how much we are likely to be together. Wherefore, if you have an appointment with the gout, pray defer it to another day. So take care to be well and expect me in two or three days' time.

§ Fam.9.23  DII (Fam. IX, 23) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) CUMAE, 17 NOVEMBER: I ARRIVED yesterday at my Cuman villa, tomorrow I shall perhaps come to see you. But as soon as I know for certain, I will send you word a little beforehand. However, M. Caeparius, who met me on the road at the Gallinarian wood, told me you were in bed with the gout. I was sorry to hear it, as in duty bound; nevertheless, I resolved to come to you, for the sake not only of seeing you and paying you a visit, but even of dining with you: for I don't suppose you have a cook who is gouty also. Expect therefore a guest, who is far from being a gourmet, and is a foe to extravagant dinners.

§ Fam.13.66  DIV (Fam. XIII, 66) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: I SHOULD not have undertaken to recommend Aulus Caecina to you, who is a client of your family in a very special sense, as I was fully aware how loyal to your friends and how indulgent to men in exile you were ever wont to be, had not both the memory of his father, with whom I was exceedingly intimate, and his own misfortune affected me as that of a man most closely united to me by mutual interests and good services of every kind was bound to do. I ask with all my might as a favour from you — with an earnestness indeed and heartfelt anxiety beyond which I cannot go in asking anything — that you would allow a letter from me to add a finishing stroke to what, without anyone's recommendation, you would have spontaneously done for a man of such high and noble character, labouring under so heavy a calamity. Let it induce you to be even more zealous in assisting him in whatever ways you may have the power of doing so. If you had been at Rome, we should — as I think — have even secured Aulus Caecina's recall by your assistance. Of this, after all, I still have a strong hope, relying on the forgiving nature of your colleague. For the present, as in reliance on your sense of justice he has concluded your province to be his safest harbour of refuge, I beg and beseech you again and again to assist him in collecting the remnants of his old business, and to protect and watch over him in all other matters. You can do nothing that will oblige me more.

§ Fam.13.67  DV (Fam. XIII, 67) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: IN all my province of Cilicia, to which, as you know, were joined three Asiatic dioceses, I was not more intimate with anyone than with Andron, son of Artemon, of Laodicea, and in that city I regarded him both as a guest and as a man eminently adapted to my way of life and habits. I learnt, Indeed, to value him at a much higher rate, after I left the province, because I discovered by many instances that he was grateful and did not forget me. Accordingly, I was most delighted to see him at Rome. For it does not escape your observation, having done favours to a great number of people in that province, what proportion of them are found to show gratitude. My object in writing, therefore, is both that you should understand that I do not take this trouble without good reason, and that you should yourself decide that he is worthy of being admitted to your society. You will therefore have done me a very great favour, if you make it clear to him how highly you value me, that is, if you accord him your patronage and assist him in whatever matter you can consistently with your own honour and convenience. This will be a very great gratification to me, and I ask you again and again to do so.

§ Fam.13.69  DVI (Fam. XIII, 69) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: C. Curtius Mithres is in fact, as you know, a freedman of my very intimate friend Postumus, but he pays me as much attention and respect as he does his own patron himself. At Ephesus, as often as I was in that town, his house was as open to me as my own, and many things occurred which gave me occasion to learn his affection and fidelity to myself. Accordingly, if either I or any of my friends had occasion for anything in Asia, it has been my habit to write to him, and to use his services and fidelity as well as his house and means as though they were my own. I tell you this at the greater length, to make you understand that I am not writing conventionally or for unworthy motives, but as I should do for a man with whom I am intimate and have very close ties. My request to you, therefore, is that in the lawsuit in which he is engaged with a certain Colophonian as to the possession of an estate, you should in compliment to me afford him every assistance in your power, as far as your honour and convenience will allow: though my knowledge of his reasonable character assures me that he will never be an embarrassment to you. If by means of my recommendation and his own uprightness he secures your good opinion, he will think that he has gained all he desires. I therefore earnestly beg you again and again to accord him your patronage and put him on the list of your friends. On my side, whatever I think that you wish or is to your interest, I will see to with zeal and activity.

§ Fam.13.70  DVII (Fam. XIII, 70) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: YOUR affection for me is so notorious that many seek to be recommended to you by my means. Now I grant that favour at times indiscriminately, but generally only to close friends, as in the present instance: for I am very intimate and very closely connected with T. Ampius Balbus. His freedman T. Ampius Menander, a man of strict morals, good conduct, and highly thought of both by his patron and myself, I commend to you with no common warmth. You will do me a very great favour, if you will oblige him in any matters consistent with your own convenience. I earnestly ask you again and again to do so.

§ Fam.13.71  DVIII (Fam. XIII, 71) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: IT is inevitable that I should recommend many persons to you, for everyone knows our intimacy and your kindly feeling towards me. Nevertheless, though I am bound to wish well to all whom I recommend, yet I have not the same reason to do so in the case of all. Titus Agusius was by my side during the most miserable time of my life, and was the companion of all my journeys, voyages, labours, and dangers: nor would he now have left my side, had I not granted him permission. Therefore I recommend him to you as one of my own household and of those most closely united to me. You will very much oblige me if you make him feel by your treatment of him that this recommendation has been of great service and assistance to him.

§ Fam.13.72  DIX (Fam. XIII, 72) TO P. SERVILIUS VATIA ISAURICUS (IN ASIA) ROME: IN an interview with you in your suburban villa I commended to you the property, investments, and estates in Asia of my friend Caerellia as earnestly as I could, and you promised me with the greatest liberality to do everything possible in a manner consonant with your unbroken and eminent services to me. I hope you remember the fact: I know that it is your habit to do so. Nevertheless, Caerellia's agents have written to me to say that, Owing to the wide extent of your province and the multiplicity of your engagements, you need to be frequently reminded. I ask you, therefore, to remember that you promised me in the amplest terms that you would do everything your honour would allow. In my opinion — but it is a matter for yourself to consider and decide-you have now an excellent Opportunity of obliging Caerellia in accordance with the decree of the senate passed in regard to the heirs of C. Vennonius. That decree you. will interpret in the light of your own wisdom. For I know that the authority of that order has always been great in your eyes. For the rest, please believe that in whatever particulars you may have done kindnesses to Caerellia, you will be very greatly obliging me.

§ Fam.13.17  DX (Fam. XIII, 17) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: Manius Curius, who has a bank at Patrae has given me many weighty reasons for being attached to him. My friendship with him is of very old standing, dating from his first entrance into public life: and at Patrae on many previous occasions, and particularly during the late unhappy war, his house was put entirely at my disposal, and if there had been any occasion, I should have used it as my own. But my strongest tie to him is of what I may call a more sacred, obligation- is that he is a very close friend of my friend Atticus, and distinguishes him above everybody by his attentions and affection. If you are by any chance already acquainted with him, I think that I am too late in doing what I am now doing. For he is so cultivated and polite a man, that I should regard him as already sufficiently recommended to you by his own Character. Yet, if this is so, I beg you earnestly that any inclination, which you have already conceived for him before getting my letter, may be enhanced to the highest possible degree by my recommendation. But if; owing to his retiring character, he has not put himself in your way or you have not yet become sufficiently acquainted with him, or if there is any reason of any sort for his wanting a warmer recommendation, I hereby recommend him to you, with a zeal as great and for reasons as sound as I could have for recommending anyone in the world. And I shall be acting in this as those are bound to act who recommend conscientiously and disinterestedly: for I shall be pledging my word to you, or rather I do hereby pledge my word and take upon me to promise, that the character of Manius Curius, and his culture no less than his honesty, are of such a nature that, if once he becomes known to you, you will think him deserving of your friendship and of such an earnest recommendation. I, at any rate, shall be exceedingly gratified, if I find that this letter has had the weight with you which, as I write, I feel confident that it will have.

§ Fam.13.18  DXI (Fam. XIII, 18) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I WILL not allow that your most kind and courteous letter to Atticus — whom I see to be transported with delight-was more gratifying to him than to myself. For, though it was almost equally pleasing to us both, yet I was the more struck with admiration of the two. You would, of course, have made a courteous answer to Atticus if asked, or at least reminded: but (as for my part I never doubted that you would do) you spontaneously wrote to him, and, without his expecting it, offered him so warm an expression of goodwill. On this subject not only ought I not to ask you to be more zealous in that respect for my sake also — for nothing could go beyond your promises — but I should be wrong even to thank you, since you have acted for his own sake and on your own initiative. However, I will say this, that I am exceedingly gratified at what you have done. For such appreciation on your part of a man who has a place apart in my affections cannot fail to be supremely delightful to me: and, that being so, it of course excites my gratitude. But all the same, since considering our intimacy a faux pas in writing to you is allowable to me, I will do both the things that I said that I ought not to do. In the first place, to what you have shown that you will do for the sake of Atticus I would have you make as large an addition as our mutual affection can suggest: in the second place, though I said just now that I feared to thank you, I now do so outright: and I would wish you to believe that, under whatever obligations you place Atticus, whether in regard to his affairs in Epirus or elsewhere, I shall consider myself to be equally bound to you by them.

§ Fam.13.19  DXII (Fam. XIII, 19) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: WITH Lyso of Patrae I have indeed a long-standing tie of hospitality — a tie which, I think, ought to be conscientiously maintained. That is a position shared by many others: but I never was so intimate with any other foreigner, and that intimacy has been so much enhanced both by many services on his part and by an almost daily intercourse, that nothing could now be closer than ours is. He stayed a year at Rome almost living in my house, and though we were in great hopes that, in consequence of my letter and recommendation, you would take great pains in doing what you have actually done, namely, protect his property and fortune in his absence; yet, as everything was in the power of one man, and as Lyso had been engaged on our side and was under our protection, we were in daily dread of something happening. However, his own brilliant character, and the zeal of myself and others of his hosts, have secured all that we wished from Caesar, as you will learn from Caesar's despatch to you. In view of this, I not only do not in any way abate the earnestness of my recommendation to you, on the ground of having now got everything we wanted, but I rather urge all the more strongly that you should admit him to your confidence and intimacy. When his position was less secure I pressed you on the point with rather less boldness, being afraid that something might happen to him of a nature beyond even your power to remedy. Now that his pardon is secured, I ask you with the greatest earnestness and anxiety to do all you can. Not to go into details, I commend his whole establishment to you, and among them his young son, whom. my client Cn. Maenius Gemellus, having been during his exile made a citizen of Patrae, adopted according to the laws of the town. Pray therefore support his legal claim to the inheritance. The main point is that you should admit Lyso, whom I have found to be a most excellent and grateful man, to your society and friendship. If you do so, I do not doubt that, in showing him affection and in afterwards recommending him to other people, you will come to the same conclusion about him and entertain the same feeling towards him that I do. I am very eager that you should do this, but I am also afraid lest, if you shall appear to have done less than the very best for him in some particular, he should think that I have not written earnestly enough, rather than that you have forgotten me. How much you value me he has had the opportunity of learning both from our everyday conversations and from your letters.

§ Fam.13.20  DXIII (Fam. XIII, 20) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I am intimate with the physician Asciapo of Patrae. I found his society very agreeable, as well as his medical skill, which I have had experience of in the illnesses of my household. He gave me every satisfaction both by his knowledge of his profession and by his kindness. I therefore commend him to you, and beg you to see that he understands that I have written cordially about him, and that my recommendation has been of great service to him. It will be doing me a great favour.

§ Fam.13.21  DXIV (Fam. XIII, 21) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: M. Aemilius Avianius has always from his earliest manhood shown me attention and affection. He is both a good and cultivated man, and worthy of your favour in every kind of employment. If I had thought that he was at Sicyon, and had I not been told that he was still staying where I left him at Cibyra, there had been no necessity for my writing at any greater length to you about him. For he would of himself have secured your affection by his own character and culture without anyone's recommendation, in as great a degree as he enjoys mine and that of all his other friends. But as I suppose him to be away, I commend with more than common earnestness his family at Sicyon and his property, especially his freedman C. Avianius Hammonius, whom indeed I commend to you on his own account also. For, while he has earned my esteem by his remarkable loyalty and fidelity to his patron, he has also done me personally some valuable services, and stood by me in the time of my greatest distress with a fidelity and affection as great as though I had myself liberated him. Accordingly, I beg you to support Hammonius for himself; as well as in his patron's business, and to go so far as to like and reckon among your friends both his agent, whom I am commending to you, and Avianius himself. You will find him modest and serviceable, and worthy of your affection. Good-bye.

§ Fam.13.22  DXV (Fam. XIII, 22) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I am very fond of T. Manlius, a banker at Thespiae; for he always paid me respect, and was most constant in his attentions, and has besides some taste for our branch of learning. I may add that Varro Murena is very desirous that everything should be done for him; who yet thought that, though he felt confidence in a letter of his own in which he had commended Manlius to you, some additional advantage would be gained by a recommendation from me. For myself; both my intimacy with Manlius and Varro's eagerness have induced me to write to you as seriously as I could. You will therefore do me a very great favour, if you will regard this recommendation as one calling for your utmost consideration, that is, if you will assist and honour Titus Manlius in the highest degree in every way consistent with your honour and character. Finally, from his exceedingly grateful and cultivated character, I undertake that you will reap all the benefit you are accustomed to expect from good men's services.

§ Fam.13.23  DXVI (Fam. XIII, 23) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I am very intimate with L. Cossinius, your friend and fellow tribesman. For not only is there a long-standing acquaintance between us personally, but my friend Atticus has caused my relations with Cossinius to become still closer. Accordingly, the whole family of Cossinius is attached to me, and especially his freedman L. Cossinius Anchialus, a man who possesses the high esteem both of his patron and his patron's friends, of whom I am one. I recommend him to you as I would a freedman of my own, and as though he held the same position with me as he does with his patron. If he did I could not recommend him with greater warmth. Wherefore you will do me a very great favour, if you will admit him to your friendship and assist him in anything in which he may need your help, as far as you can do so without inconvenience. That will be both very gratifying to me and hereafter a source of pleasure to yourself: for you will find that he is eminently honest, cultivated, and attentive.

§ Fam.13.24  DXVII (Fam. XIII, 24) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: As it gave me great pleasure before to find that you had remembered my earnest recommendation of Lyso, my host and friend, so also, when I found from his letter that he had been the object of your undeserved suspicion, I was exceedingly rejoiced that I had been so earnest in recommending him. For he writes me word that my recommendation has been of the greatest assistance to him, as he says that a report had been brought you of his being in the habit of speaking disrespectfully of you at Rome. And though he writes word that your good nature and kindness of heart have enabled him to clear himself on that point, yet, first of all, as in duty bound, I thank you warmly that my letter has had such influence with you as to cause you on its perusal to lay aside all that irritating suspicion which you had entertained of Lyso. In the next place, I would have you believe me, when I assert that I write this not more in the name of Lyso than of everybody else — that no one has ever mentioned you except in the terms of the highest respect. As for Lyso, indeed, while he was with me every day and almost lived with me, not only because he thought that I liked hearing it, but also because it gave him still more pleasure to say it himself; he used to speak to me in praise of everything you did and said. Wherefore, though he is now being treated by you in a way that makes a recommendation from me unnecessary, and makes him think that he has got all he wants by means of one letter from me, yet I do beg of you with no common earnestness to continue to receive him with kindness and liberality. I would have written a description of his character, as I did in my previous letter, had I not thought that by this time he was sufficiently well known to you by his own merits.

§ Fam.13.25  DXVIII (Fam. XIII, 25) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: Hegesaretus of Larisa, who was honoured by signal favours from me in my consulship, was not unmindful or ungrateful, and treated me afterwards with very great respect. I recommend him to you with great earnestness as my guest-friend, as my intimate acquaintance, as a grateful person, as a man of high character, as holding the chief position in his own state, and, lastly, as being worthy in the highest degree of your intimacy. I shall be very grateful if you take the trouble to make him understand that this recommendation of mine has had great weight with you.

§ Fam.13.26  DXIX (Fam. XIII, 26) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: My connexion with L. Mescinius is that which arises from the fact that he was my quaestor. But this tie — which I, in accordance with the usage of antiquity, have ever regarded as a strong one — he has rendered more complete by his personal excellence and kindness. Accordingly, nothing could more intimate and more pleasant to myself than my intercourse with him. Now, although he seemed to feel certain that you would be pleased to do all you honourably could for him for his own sake, he yet hoped that a letter from me would also have great weight with you. He judged that to be the case for himself; but as he was very intimate with me he had also often heard me say how delightful and close our union was. I ask you, therefore, with all the earnestness with which you understand that I ought to ask on behalf of a man so near and dear to me, to facilitate and settle the business matters which he has in Achaia arising from the fact 'of his being the heir of his cousin M. Mindius, late a banker at Elis, not only by your legal prerogative and authority, but also by your influence and advice. For I have directed those to whom I have intrusted my business, that in all 'points which give rise to dispute, they were to appeal to you as arbitrator and — so far as was consistent with your convenience — as final judge. That you should in compliment to me undertake that business, I earnestly and repeatedly beg of you. There is one other point in which you will particularly oblige me, if you don't think it inconsistent with your position; it is that, as the controversy is with a senator, you should refer to Rome such of the parties as prove too stubborn to allow the business to be settled without an issue being tried. That you might be able to do that with the less hesitation, I have secured a despatch to you from the consul M. Lepidus, not conveying any order — for that I did not think consonant with your position — but to a certain extent and in a manner commendatory. I would have mentioned how well invested such a favour is sure to be in the case of Mescinius, had I not, in the first place, felt certain that you knew, and had I not also been asking for myself: for I would have you believe that I am quite as anxious about his interests as he is himself. But while I am eager that he should come by his own without difficulty, I am also anxious that he should think that he owes his success in no small degree to my recommendation.

§ Fam.13.27  DXX (Fam. XIII, 27) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I FREQUENTLY send you letters of this kind, which are replicas of each other, in thanking you for paying such prompt attention to my letters of introduction. I have done so in the cases of others and shall often, as I see, have occasion to do so again. Nevertheless I will not spare labour, and, as you jurisconsults are in the habit of doing in your formulae, I will in my letters "state the same case in a different manner." Well then, C. Avianius Hammonius has written to me with profuse thanks in his own name and in .that of his patron Aemilius Avianius, saying that neither he him self; who was on the spot, nor the property of his absent patron, could have been treated with greater liberality or consideration. That was gratifying to me for the sake of those whom I had recommended to you, induced thereto by our very close friendship and union — for M. Aemilius is one of my most intimate and closest friends, a man eminently attached and bound to me by great services on my part, and about the most grateful of all those who appear to be under some obligation to me. But it is much more gratifying that you should be so disposed towards me as to do more for my friends than I perhaps could have done if I had been on the spot, I presume, because I should have been more doubtful what to do for their sake, than you are what to do for mine. But this I do not doubt — that you feel that you have obliged me. I only ask you to believe that those persons also are grateful: I pledge you my word and solemnly assert that it is so. Wherefore pray do your best that, whatever business they have on hand, they may get it settled whilst you still governing Achaia. I am living on the pleasantest and most harmonious terms with your son Servius, and derive great pleasure from his natural abilities and signal industry, as well as from his virtuous and straightforward character.

§ 46.521  DXXI (Fam. XIII, 28a) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: THOUGH I take pleasure in asking you for anything that any one of my friends requires, yet I take much greater in thanking you, when you have done something on my recommendation, as you are always doing. For it is beyond belief what thanks I get from all, even from those who have been recommended by me to you with only moderate warmth. Every instance gives me gratification, but none 30 much as that of L. Mescinius. For he told me that directly you had read my letter you promised his agents all they wanted, and have in fact been much better than your word. In that matter therefore — for I think I ought to say it again and again — I would have you believe that I am excessively obliged to you. I am, indeed, all the more delighted at this, because I see clearly that you will get the highest pleasure from Mescinius himself. For he is not only a man of virtue and uprightness, very serviceable and exceedingly attentive, but he has also the same literary pursuits as ourselves, which in old times were our recreation, but now are life itself. For the future I would have you supplement your kindnesses to him in all things consonant with your character. There are two things which I ask of you specifically: first, that if any undertaking has to be given "against farther claims on that head," you would see to its being given on my security: and, in the second place, seeing that his inheritance consists almost entirely of the property appropriated by Oppia, who was once Mindius's wife, that you should give your assistance and concert measures for bringing her over to Rome. If she thinks that is going to be done, in my opinion, we shall settle the business. I beg you again and again to enable us to do that. What I said above I now solemnly confirm and take upon myself to guarantee — that you will find what you have done in the past and are going to do in the future for the sake of Mescinius so well invested, as to convince you that you have bestowed your kindness on the most grateful, the most delightful man in the world. For this is the addition which I desire to what you have done for my sake.

§ 46.522  DXXII (Fam. XIII, 28b) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I DO not think, on the one hand, that the Lacedemonians doubt being sufficiently recommended to your honour and justice by their own and their ancestors' reputation, and I, on the other, knowing you as well as I do, had no doubt of the rights and deserts of the several nations being thoroughly well known to you. Accordingly, when Philippus the Lacedemonian begged me to recommend the city to you, though I remembered that I was under all sorts of obligations to it, I nevertheless answered that Lacedemonians needed no recommendation with you. Accordingly, I would have you believe that, considering the disturbed state of the times, I look upon all the cities of Achaia as being happy in having you as their governor; and that I also think that, knowing thoroughly as you do not only our own records but also all those of Greece, you are and will be a friend to the Lacedemonians. Wherefore I only ask this of you, that, when you do for the Lacedemonians what your honour, high position, and justice shall demand, you should let them know — if you think it right — that you are not other-wise than glad to find that what you are doing is gratifying to me also. For it affects my loyalty that they should think that I am attentive to their interests. I again and again urge this upon you with warmth.

§ Fam.13.78  DXXIII (Fam. XIII, 78) TO AULUS ALLIENUS (IN SICILY) ROME: DEMOCRITUS of Sicyon is not only my guest-firend, but also very intimate with me, as is not often the case with such men, especially if they are Greeks. For his honesty and virtue are of the highest kind, and he is exceedingly liberal and attentive to his guest-friends, and distinguishes me above the rest by his respect, attentions, and affection. You must regard him as the leading man not only of his fellow citizens, but almost of all Achaia. For such a man I do no more than open the door and pave the way to an acquaintance with you: when you once know him, your natural disposition is such that you will decide him to be worthy of your friendship and society. What I ask of you, then, is that on reading this letter you should accord him your patronage, and promise to do everything for him for my sake. For the rest, if; as I feel sure will be the case, you ascertain him to be deserving of your friendship and society, I ask you to receive him with open arms, to love him, and to regard him as one of your own family. That will be a more than common favour to me. Good-bye.

§ Fam.13.79  DXXIV (Fam. XIII, 79) TO AULUS ALLIENUS (IN SICILY) ROME: I THINK, in the first place, that you know the value I have for C. Avianius Flaccus, and, in the next place, I have heard from himself — a most excellent and grateful man-with what liberality he has been treated by you. His sons-quite worthy of their father and close friends of my own, occupying a special place in my affection — I recommend to you with an earnestness beyond which I cannot go in recommending anyone. Gaius Avianius is in Sicily; Marcus is with us. I beg you to promote the social standing of the former, who is with you, and to defend the property of both. You cannot oblige me more by anything you do in your province. I beg you warmly and repeatedly to do so.

§ Fam.6.8  DXXV (Fam. VI, 8) TO AULUS CAECINA (IN SICILY) ROME, DECEMBER: LARGUS, who is devoted to you, having told me that the 1st of January was the limit fixed for you, and having my-self noticed that any ordinance made by Balbus and Oppius in Caesar's absence was usually ratified by him, I urged upon them with warmth to grant me as a favour that you should be permitted to remain in Sicily as long as we wished. Though they have been in the habit of freely promising me anything which was not calculated to hurt the feelings of that party, or even of refusing it and giving a reason for their refusal, to this request or rather demand of mine they gave no immediate answer. However, they came to see me again the same day: they granted me permission for you to remain in Sicily as long as you chose: they said that they would answer for your not prejudicing your interests at all by doing so. Now, since you know what you have licence to do, I think you ought to know what my Opinion is. After this business had been settled I received a letter from you asking my advice as to whether you should settle in Sicily, or go to look after the remains of your business in Asia. This deliberation on your part did not appear to me to tally with the words of Largus. For in his conversation with me he had implied that you were forbidden to stay in Sicily: you, on the other hand, are deliberating, as though the permission had been given. But, for my part, whether the former or the latter is the case, I am for your staying in Sicily. The nearness of the locality is of advantage, either for securing your recall, because of the frequency of letters and messengers, or for a rapid return, when either that point, as I hope it will be, is gained or some other plan arranged. Therefore I am strongly in favour of your staying. I will be very earnest in recommending you to T. Furfanius Postumus, who is a friend of mine, and to his legates, who are also friends, when they come here: at present they are all at Mutina. They are excellent men, fond of men like you, and on intimate terms with me. Whatever occurs to me that I think likely to be to your advantage, I will do without being asked: if there is anything I don't know, at the first hint of it I will surpass the zeal of everybody. Although I shall speak to Furfanius personally about you in such a way as to render a letter from me to him quite unnecessary for you, yet, as your relations have decided that you should have a letter of mine to give him, I have complied with their wish. I append a copy of the letter.

§ Fam.6.9  DXXVI (Fam. VI, 9) TO T. FURFANIUS (PROCONSUL IN SICILY) ROME: No intimacy or friendship could be closer than that which I have always had with Aulus Caecina. For I was constantly in the society of that illustrious and gallant man his father: and my affection for this man also from his childhood has been such as to make the intimacy between us close as it is possible to have with anyone-partly because he seemed to me to give great promise of supreme excellence, honesty, and eloquence; and partly because he lived with me in the most complete sympathy, not only from our mutual services of friendship, but also from a community of literary tastes. I need not write at greater length. How bound I am to protect his safety and property by every means in my power you see. It only remains, since I know from many circumstances what your sentiments are as to the fortune of the loyalists and the disasters to the Republic, that I should beg nothing of you except that to the goodwill, which you are sure spontaneously to entertain towards him, there may be added a supplement proportionate to the value which I know you have for me. You cannot oblige me more than by doing this. Good-bye.

§ Fam.5.16  DXXVII (Fam. V, 16) TO TITIUS (ROME) Though of all the world I am by far the least fitted to offer you consolation, because your sorrow has caused me so much pain that I needed consolation myself; yet since my sorrow was farther removed from the acuteness of the deepest grief than your own, I have resolved that our close connexion and my warm feelings for you make it incumbent on me not to be so long silent in what causes you such deep mourning, but to offer some reasonable consolation such as may suffice to lighten, if it could not wholly heal your sorrow. Now there is a source of consolation — hackneyed indeed to the last degree — which we ought ever to have on our lips and in our hearts: we should remember that we are men, born under the conditions which expose our life to all the missiles of fortune; and we must not decline life on the conditions under which we were born, nor rebel so violently under mischances which we are unable to avoid by any precautions; and by recalling what has happened to others we should reflect that nothing strange has betided us. But neither these, nor other sources of consolation, which have been employed by the greatest philosophers and have been recorded in literature, ought, it seems, to be of so much avail, as the position of the state itself and the disruption of these evil times, which make those the happiest who have never had children, and those who have lost them at such a crisis less miserable than if they had done so when the Republic was in a good state, or indeed had any existence at all. But if your own loss affects you, or if you mourn at the thought of your own position, I do not think that you will find that grief easy to remove in its entirety. If on the other hand what wrings your heart is grief for the miserable fate of those who have fallen — a thought more natural to an affectionate heart — to say nothing of what I have repeatedly read and heard, that there is no evil in death, after which if any sensation remains it is to be regarded as immortality rather than death, while if it is all lost, it follows that nothing must be regarded as misery which is not felt-yet this much I can assert, that confusions are brewing, disasters preparing and threatening the Republic, such that whoever has left them cannot possibly, as it seems to me, be in the wrong. For what place is there now, I don't say for conscience, uprightness, virtue, right feeling, and good qualities, but for bare freedom and safety? By Heaven, I have never been told of any young man or boy having died in this most unhealthy and pestilent year, who did not seem to me to be rescued by the immortal gods from the miseries of this world and from a most intolerable condition of life. Wherefore, if this one idea can be removed from your mind, so as to convince you that no evil has happened to those you loved, your grief will have been very much lessened. For there will then only be left that single strain of sorrow which will not be concerned with them, but will have reference to yourself alone: in regard to which it is not consonant with a high character and wisdom such as you have displayed from boyhood, to show excessive sorrow for a misfortune that has befallen you, when it does not at all involve misery or evil to those whom you have loved. In fact, the qualities you have displayed both in private and public business entail the necessity of preserving your dignity and supporting your character for consistency. For that which length of time is sure to bring us of itself — which removes the bitterest sorrows by the natural process of decay — we ought to anticipate by reflexion and wisdom. Why, if there never was a woman so weak-minded on the death of her children, as not sooner or later to put a period to her mourning, certainly we men ought to anticipate by reflexion what lapse of time is sure to bring, and not to wait for a cure from time, when we can have it on the spot from reason. If I have done you any good by this letter, I think that I have accomplished a desirable object: but if by chance it has been of no avail, I hold that I have done the duty of one who wishes you all that is best and loves you very dearly. Such a one I would have you think that I have been, and believe that I shall be to you in the future.

§ Fam.13.77  DXXVIII (Fam. XIII, 77) TO P. SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ILLYRICUM) ROME (AUTUMN) Marcus Cicero sends warmest greeting to Publius Sulpicius, imperator. Though in these times it is not my custom to appear often in the senate, yet, when I read your letter, I made up my mind that I could not omit supporting the honour proposed for you, with due regard to the claims of our old friendship and of the many acts of kindness that have passed between us. Accordingly, I attended and had great pleasure in voting for the supplicatio in your honour, nor in the future will I at any time fail to support your interests, character, or public position. So, that your family may be aware of this feeling of mine towards you, pray write and tell them that in anything you need they should not hesitate to inform me of it as a matter of right. I strongly commend Marcus Bolanus to you as an excellent and gallant man, highly accomplished in every way, and an old friend of my own. You will much oblige me if you will take care to make him understand that this introduction has been of great service to him. He will himself convince you of his excellent character and grateful disposition: and I promise you that you will reap great pleasure from his friendship. Once more I beg you with more than common earnestness, in the name of our friendship and your unbroken zeal in my service, to bestow some pains on the following matter also. Dionysius, a slave of mine who had the care of my library, worth a large sum of money, having purloined a large number of books, and thinking that he could not escape punishment, absconded. He is in your province: my friend Marcus Bolanus and many others saw him at Narona; but they believed his assertion that I had given him his freedom. If you would take the trouble to restore this man to me, I can't tell you how much obliged I shall be to you. It is a small matter in itself; yet my vexation is serious. Bolanus will inform you where he is and what can be done. If I recover the man by your means, I shall consider myself to have received a great kindness at your hands.

§ Fam.15.18  DXXIX (Fam. XV, 18) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (AT BRUNDISIUM) ROME (JANUARY?) MY letter would have been longer, had not the messenger come for it when he was just on the point of starting for you. It would have been longer also if it had any persiflage in it, for we cannot be serious with safety. "Can we laugh, then?" you will say. No, by Hercules, not very easily. Yet other means of distraction from our troubles we have none. "Where, then," you will say, "is your philosophy?" Yours indeed is in the kitchen, mine in the schools. For I am ashamed of being a slave. Accordingly, I pose as being busy about other things, to avoid the reproach of Plato. We have no Certain intelligence from Spain as yet — in fact, no news at all. For my sake I am sorry that you are out of town, for your own I am glad. But your letter-carrier is getting clamorous. Good-bye then, and love me as you have done from boyhood.

§ Fam.15.16  DXXX (Fam. XV, 16) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (AT BRUNDISIUM) ROME (JANUARY) I think you must be a little ashamed at this being the third letter inflicted on you before I have a page or a syllable from you. But I will not press you: I shall expect, or rather exact, a longer letter. For my part, if I had a messenger always at hand, I should write even three an hour. For somehow it makes you seem almost present when I write anything to you, and that not "by way of phantoms of images," as your new friends express it, who hold that "mental pictures" are caused by what Catius called "spectres" — for I must remind you that Catius Insuber the Epicurean, lately dead, calls "spectres" what the famous Gargettius, and before him Democritus, used to call "images." Well, even if my eyes were capable of being struck by these "spectres," because they spontaneously run in upon them at your will, I do not see how the mind can be struck. You will be obliged to explain it to me, when you return safe and sound, whether the "spectre" of you is at my command, so as to occur to me as soon as I have taken the fancy to think about you; and not only about you, who are in my heart's core, but supposing I begin thinking about the island of Britain — will its image fly at once into my mind? But of this later on. I am just sounding you now to see how you take it. For if you are angry and annoyed, I shall say more and demand that you be restored to the sect from which you have been ejected by "violence and armed force." In an injunction of this sort the words "within this year" are not usually added. Therefore, even if it is now two or three years since you divorced Virtue, seduced by the charms of Pleasure, it will still be open for me to do so. And yet to whom am I speaking? It is to you, the most gallant of men, who ever since you entered public life have done nothing that was not imbued to the utmost with the highest principle. In that very sect of yours I have a misgiving that there must be more stuff than I thought, if only because you accept it. "How did that come into your head?" you will say. Because I had nothing else to say. About politics I can write nothing: for I don't choose to write down my real opinions.

§ Fam.6.7  DXXXI (Fam. VI, 7) AULUS CAECINA TO CICERO (AT ROME) SICILY (JANUARY) FOR my book not having been delivered to you so quickly, forgive my timidity, and pity my position. My son, I am told, was very much alarmed at the book being put in circulation, and with reason — since it does not matter so much in what spirit it is written, as in what spirit it is taken — for fear lest a stupid thing like that should stand in my light, and that too when I am still suffering for the sins of my pen. In that matter my fate has been a strange one: for whereas a slip of the pen is cured by erasure, and stupidity is punished by loss of reputation, my mistake is corrected by exile: though my greatest crime is having spoken ill of the enemy when engaged in active service. There was no one on our side, I presume, who did not pray for victory for himself; no one who, even when offering sacrifice for something else, did not breathe a wish for Caesar's speedy defeat. If he imagines that not to be the case, he is a very fortunate man. If he does know it, and has no delusion on the subject, why be angry with a man who has written something against his views, when he has pardoned all those who offered every sort of petition to the gods against his safety? But to return to my subject, the cause of my fear was this. I have written about you, on my honour, sparingly and timidly, not merely checking myself, but almost beating a retreat. Now everyone knows that this style of writing ought not merely to be free, but even vehement and lofty. One is thought to have a free hand in attacking another, yet you must take care not to fall into mere violence: it is not open to one to praise oneself, lest the result should be the vice of egotism: there is no other course than to praise the man, on whom any blame that you may cast is necessarily set down to weakness or jealousy. And I rather think that you will like it all the better, and think it more suited to your present position. For what I could not do in good style, it was in my power first of all not to touch upon, and, as next best, to do so as sparingly as possible. But after all I did check myself: I softened many phrases, cut out many, and a very large number I did not write down at all. Then, as in a ladder, if you were to remove some rounds, cut out others, leave some loosely fastened, you would be contriving the means of a fall, not preparing a way of ascent, just so with a writer's genius: if it is at once hampered and frustrated by so many disadvantages, what can it produce worth listening to or likely to satisfy? When, indeed, I come to mention Caesar himself, I tremble in every limb, not from fear of his punishing, but of his criticising me. For I do not know Caesar thoroughly. What do you think of a courage that talks thus to itself? "He will approve of this: that expression is open to suspicion." "What if I change it to this? But I fear that will be worse." Well, suppose I am praising some one: "Shan't I offend him?" Or when I am criticising some one adversely: "What if it is against his wish?" "He punishes the pen of a man engaged in a campaign: what will he do to that of a man conquered and not yet restored?" You yourself add to my alarm, because in your Orator you shield yourself under the name of Brutus, and try to make him a party to your apology. When the universal "patron" does this, what ought I to do — an old client of yours, and now everyone's client? Amidst such misgivings therefore created by fear, and on the rack of such blind suspicion, when most of what one writes has to be adapted to what one imagines are the feelings of another, not to one's own judgment, I feel how difficult it is to come off successfully, though you have not found the same difficulty, because your supreme and surpassing genius has armed you for every eventuality. Nevertheless, I told my son to read the book to you, and then to take it away, or only to give it to you on condition that you would promise to correct it, that is, if you would give it a totally new complexion. About my journey to Asia, though the necessity for my making it was very urgent, I have obeyed your commands. Why should I urge you to exert yourself for me? You are fully aware that the time has come when my case must be decided. There is no occasion, my dear Cicero, for you to wait for my son. He is a young man: he cannot from his warmth of feeling, or his youth, or his timidity, think of all necessary measures. The whole business must rest on you: you is all my hope. Your acuteness enables you to hit upon the measures which Caesar likes, and which win his favour. Everything must originate with you, and be brought to the desired conclusion by you. You have great influence with Caesar himself, very great with all his friends. If you will convince yourself of this one thing, that your duty is not merely to do what you are asked — though that is a great and important thing — but that the whole burden rests on you, you will carry it through: unless — which I don't believe — my misfortunes make me too inconsiderate, or my friendship too bold, in placing this burden upon you. But your lifelong habits suggest an excuse for both: for from your habit of exerting yourself for your friends, your intimates have come not so much to hope for that favour at your hands, as to demand it as a right. As for my book, which my son will give you, I beg that you will not let it out of your hands, or that you will so correct it as to prevent it doing me any harm.

§ Fam.6.5  DXXXII (Fam. VI, 5) TO AULUS CAECINA (IN SICILY) ROME (JANUARY) EVERY time I see your son — and that is nearly every day — I promise him my zealous and active support, without any reserve as to labour, prior engagement, or time: but the exertion of my interest or favour with this reservation, "as far as I have the opportunity or power." Your book has been read and is still being read by me with attention, and kept under lock and key with the greatest care. Your prospects and fortunes are of the highest concern to me. They seem to me to grow brighter and less complicated every day: and I can see that many are much interested in them, of whose zeal, 'as well as of his own hopes, I feel certain that your son has written fully to you. But as to those particulars, in which I am reduced to conjecture, I do not take upon myself to profess greater foresight than I am convinced that your own eyes and your own intelligence give you: but all the same, as it may. very well be that your reflexions on those points are somewhat agitated, I think it is incumbent upon me to explain my opinions. It is neither in the nature of things nor the ordinary revolutions of time that a position such as either your own or that of the rest should be protracted, or that so outrageous an injustice should be persistently maintained in so good a cause and in the case of such good citizens. In which matter, in addition to the hope which your own case gives me to a degree beyond the common — I don't mean only from your high position and admirable character, for these are distinctions which you share with others-there are the claims which brilliant genius and eminent virtue make peculiar to yourself. And to these, by Hercules, he in whose power we are allows much weight. Accordingly, you would not have remained even a moment in your present position, had it not been that he thought himself to have been insulted by precisely that accomplishment of yours, in which he takes delight. But this feeling is softening every day, and those who live with him hint to me, that this very opinion which he entertains of your genius will do you a great deal of good with him. Wherefore, in the first place, keep up your spirits and courage: for your birth, education, learning, and character in the world demand that you should do so. In the next place, entertain the most certain hopes for the reasons which I have given you. On my side, indeed, I would have you feel sure that everything I can do is most completely at your service and at that of your sons: for this is no more than our longstanding friendship, and my invariable conduct to my friends, and your many kindnesses to me demand.

§ Fam.6.18  DXXXIII (Fam. VI, 18) TO QUINTUS LEPTA ROME (JANUARY) Immediately on the receipt of the letter from your servant Seleucus I sent a note to Balbus asking him what the provision of the law was. He answered that auctioneers in actual business were excluded from being municipal counsellors, retired auctioneers were not excluded. Wherefore certain friends of yours and mine need not be alarmed, for it would have been intolerable, while those who were now acting as haruspices were put on the roll of the senate at Rome, all who had ever been auctioneers should be excluded from becoming counsellors in the municipal towns. There is no news from Spain. However, it is ascertained to be true that Pompey has a great army: for Caesar has himself sent me a copy of a despatch from Paciaecus, in which the number was reckoned as eleven legions. Messalla has also written to Quintus Salassus to say that his brother Publius Curtius has been put to death by Pompey's order in the presence of the army, for having, as he alleged, made a compact with certain Spaniards, that if Pompey entered a particular town to get corn, they should arrest him and take him to Caesar. As to your business in regard to your being a guarantee for Pompey, when your fellow guarantor Galba — a man generally very careful in money matters-comes back to town, I will at once consult with him to see whether anything can be done, as he seems inclined to have confidence in me. I am much delighted that you approve so highly of my Orator. My own view of it is that I have put into that book all the critical power I possessed in the art of speaking. If the book is such as you say that you think it to be, then I too am somewhat. If not, then I do not decline to allow the same deduction to be made from my reputation for critical judgment as is to be made from the book. I am desirous that our dear Lepta should take pleasure in such writings. Though his age is not yet ripe for them, yet it is not unprofitable that his ears should ring with the sound of such language. I am kept at Rome in any case by Tullia's confinement; but when she gets as well again as I can wish, I am still detained till I can get the first instalment of the dowry out of Dolabella's agents. Besides, by Hercules, I am not so much of a traveller as I used to be. My building and my leisure satisfy me entirely. My town house is now equal to any one of my villas: my leisure is more complete than the loneliest spot in the world could supply. So I am not hindered even in my literary employments, in which I am plunged without interruption. Wherefore I think that I shall see you here before you see me there. Let our dearest Lepta learn his Hesiod by heart, and have ever on his lips: "On virtue's threshold god sets sweat and toil." 372

§ Fam.4.14  DXXXIV (Fam. IV, 14) TO GNAEUS PLANCIUS (IN CORCYRA) ROME (JANUARY) I have received two letters from you, dated Corcyra. In one of these you congratulated me because you had heard, as you say, that I was enjoying my former position; in the other you said that you wished what I had done might turn out well and prosperously. Well, certainly, if they entertain honest sentiments on public affairs and to get good men to agree with them constitute a "position," then I do hold my position. But if "position" depends upon the power of giving effect to your opinion, or in fine of supporting it by freedom of speech, then I have not a trace of my old position left: and it is great good fortune if I am able to put sufficient restraint upon myself to endure without excessive distress what is partly upon us already and partly threatens to come. That is the difficulty in a war of this kind: its result shows a prospect of massacre on the one side, and slavery on the other. In this danger it affords me no little consolation to remember that I foresaw all this at the time when I was feeling greatly alarmed even at our successes — not merely at our reverses — and perceived at what immense risk the question of constitutional right was to be decided in arms. And if in that appeal to arms those had conquered, to whom, induced by the hope of peace and not the desire for war, I had given in my adhesion, I nevertheless was well aware how bloody the victory of men swayed by anger, rapacity, and overbearing pride was certain to be: while if they had been conquered, what a clean sweep would be surely made of citizens, some of the highest rank, some too of the highest character, who, when I predicted these things and advised the measures best for their safety, preferred that I should be considered over-timid rather than moderately wise. For your congratulations on what I have done, I am sure you speak your real wishes: but at such an unhappy time as this I should not have taken any new step, had it not been that at my return I found my domestic affairs in no better order than those of the state. For when, owing to the misconduct of those, to whom, considering my never-to-be-forgotten services, my safety and my fortune ought to have been their dearest object, I saw nothing safe within the walls of my house, nothing that was not the subject of some intrigue, I thought it was time to protect myself by the fidelity of new relations against the treachery of the old. But enough, or rather too much, about my own affairs. As to yours, I would have you feel as you ought to do, namely, that you have no reason to fear any measure directed specially against yourself. For if there is to be some constitution, whatever it may be, I see clearly that you will be free of all danger: for I perceive that the one party is reconciled to you, the other has never been angry with you. However, of my disposition towards you I would have you make up your mind that, whatever steps I understand to be required — though I see my position at this time and the limits of my powers — I will yet be ready with my active exertions and advice, and at least with zeal, to support your property, your good name, and your restoration. Pray be exceedingly careful on your part to let me know both what you are doing and what you think of doing in the future.

§ Fam.4.10  DXXXV (Fam. IV, 10) TO M. CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS (AT MITYLENE) ROME (JANUARY) THOUGH I have nothing fresh to say to you, and am now beginning more to expect a letter from you, or rather to see you in person, yet, as Theophilus was starting, I could not refrain from giving him some sort of letter. Do your best, then, to come at the earliest Opportunity: your coming, believe me, will be welcomed not only by us, I mean by your personal friends, but by absolutely everybody. I say this because it occurs to me sometimes to be a little afraid that you have a fancy for postponing your departure. Now, had you had no other sense than that of eyesight, I should have sympathized with you in your shrinking from the sight of certain persons: but since what is heard is not much less distressing than what is seen, while I suspected that your early arrival much concerned the safety of your property, and was of importance in every point of view, I thought I ought to give you a hint on the subject. But as I have shown you my opinion, I will leave the rest to your own wisdom. Still, pray let me know about when to expect you.

§ Fam.9.10  DXXXVI (Fam. IX, 10) TO P. CORNELIUS DOLABELLA (IN SPAIN) ROME (JANUARY) I DID not venture to allow our friend Salvius to go without a letter to you; yet, by Hercules, I have nothing to say except that I love you dearly: of which I feel certain that you do not doubt without my writing a word. In any case I ought rather to expect a letter from you, than you one from me. For there is nothing going on at Rome such as you would care to know: unless it would interest you to know that I am acting as arbitrator between our friend Nicias and Vidius! The latter puts forward in two lines, I think, a claim for money advanced to Nicias: the former, like a second Aristarchus, obelizes them. I am to be in the position of a critic of old days, and to judge whether they really are the poet's or are interpolations. I imagine you putting in here: "Have you forgotten, then, those mushrooms which you had at Nicias's dinner, and the big dishes joined to Septima's learned talk?" What! do you think my old preciseness so entirely knocked out of me, that there is no trace of my former regard for appearances to be seen even in the forum? However, I will see our delightful boon companion through his little trouble, nor will I, by securing his condemnation, give you the opportunity of re storing him, that Plancus Bursa may have some one to teach him his rudiments. But what am I doing? Though I have no means of knowing whether you are in a quiet state of mind, or, as generally happens in war, are involved in some more important anxiety or occupation, yet I drift on farther and farther. So when I shall have ascertained for certain that you are in the vein for a laugh, I will write at greater length. However, I want you to know this, that the people have been very anxious about the death of Publius Sulla before they knew it for certain. Since then they have ceased to inquire how he perished: they think in knowing that they know enough. For the rest I bear it with equanimity: the only thing I fear is lest Caesar's auctions should have received a blow. 378

§ Fam.6.1  DXXXVII (Fam. VI, 1) TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS (AT ATHENS) ROME (JANUARY) Though the universal upset is such that each man thinks his position the worst possible, and that there is no one who does not wish to be anywhere but where he is, yet I feel no doubt that at the present moment the most miserable place for a good man to be in is Rome. For though wherever any man is, he must have the same feeling and the same pang from the ruin that has overtaken the fortunes both of himself and of the state, yet, after all, one's eyes add to the pain, which force us to see what others only hear, and do not allow us to turn our thoughts from our miseries. Therefore, though you must necessarily be pained by the absence of many objects, yet from that particular sorrow, with which I am told that you are specially overpowered — that you are not at Rome — pray free your mind. For though you must feel great uneasiness at being without your family and your surroundings, yet, after all, the objects of your regret are maintaining all their rights. They could not maintain them better, if you were here, nor are they in any special danger. Nor ought you, when thinking of your family, to demand any special favour of fortune for yourself, or to refuse to bear what is common to all. In regard to yourself personally, Torquatus, your duty is to think over everything, but not to take counsel with despair or fear. For it is not the case that the man, who has as yet been harsher to you than your character deserved, has given no signs of softened feeling towards you. But, after all, that person himself, of whom your safety is being asked, is far from having the way to secure his own clear and plain before him. And while the results of all wars are uncertain, I perceive that from the victory of the one side there is no danger for you, seeing that such danger has nothing to do with the general overthrow, while from the victory of the other I feel sure that you yourself have never had any fear. I must therefore conclude that the very thing which I count as a consolation — the common danger to the state — is what is chiefly torturing you. That is an evil so great that, however philosophers may talk, I fear it admits of no real consolation being found, except that which is exactly proportioned to the strength and mettle of each man's mind. For if right thinking and right doing are sufficient to secure a good and happy life, I fear that it is impious to call a man miserable who can support himself by the consciousness of having acted on the best motives. For neither do I consider that we abandoned country and children and property at that time from the hope of the rewards of victory on the contrary, I think we were following a just and sacred duty, due at once to the Republic and our own honour-neither, at the time we did so, were we so mad as to feel certain of victory. Wherefore, if that has happened, of which, when we were entering upon the cause, the possibility was fully before us, we ought not to be crushed in spirit, as though something had happened which we never contemplated as possible. Let us then take the view, which reason and truth alike enjoin, that in this life we should not feel ourselves bound to guarantee anything except to do nothing wrong: and that, since we are free from that imputation, we should bear every misfortune incident to humanity with calmness and good temper. And so my discourse amounts to this, that, though all be lost, virtue should show that she can after all support herself. But if there is some hope of a public recovery, you certainly ought not to be without your share in it, whatever the constitution of the future is to be. And yet, as I write this, it occurs to me that I am the man whose despair you were wont to blame, and whom you used your influence to rouse from a state of hesitation and anxiety. It was at a time, indeed, when it was not the goodness of our cause, but the wisdom of our policy with which I was dissatisfied. For I saw that, when too late, we were opposing arms which had long before been rendered formidable by ourselves, and I grieved that a constitutional question should be settled by spears and swords, not by consultation and the weight of our influence. Nor, when I said that those things would occur, which actually did do so, was I divining the future. I was only expressing a fear lest what I saw to be possible and likely to be ruinous, if it did occur, should happen; especially as, if I had to promise one way or the other about the result and end of the campaign, what did actually occur would have been the more obvious promise for me to make. For the points in which we had the advantage were not those which appear on the field of battle, while in the use of arms and the vigour of our soldiers we were at a disadvantage. But pray show the spirit now which you thought that I ought to have shown then. I write this because on my making all sorts of inquiries about you from your freedman Philargyrus, he told me with feelings, as I thought, of the utmost devotion to you, that at times you were apt to be excessively anxious. You ought not to be so, nor to doubt either that, if any form of constitution is restored, you will have your due place in it, or that, if it is gone for ever, you will be in no worse position than the rest. The present position, indeed, which is one of alarm and suspense for us all, you ought to bear with the greater calm-ness of spirit from the fact that you are living in a city which gave birth to and fostered a systematic rule of life, and that you have with you in Servius Sulpicius one for whom you have always had a singular affection: one who no doubt consoles you by his kindness and wisdom; whose example and advice, if we had followed, we should have remained at peace under Caesar's supremacy, rather than have taken up arms and submitted to a conqueror. But perhaps I have treated these points at too great a length: the following, which are more important, I will express more briefly. There is no one to whom I owe more than to yourself. Those, to whom I was indebted to an extent of which you are aware, the result of this war has snatched from me. My position at the present moment I fully understand. But since there is no one so utterly prostrate as not to be able, if he gives his whole attention to what he is doing, to accomplish and carry out something, I should wish you to consider as deservedly at the service of yourself and your children, of course all my zeal, but also all my powers of counsel and action.

§ Fam.6.3  DXXXVIII (Fam. VI, 3) TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS (AT ATHENS) ROME (JANUARY) IN my former letter I was somewhat lengthy, more from warmth of affection than because the occasion demanded it. For neither did your virtue require fortifying by me, nor were my own case and position of such a nature as to allow of my encouraging another when in want of every source of encouragement myself. On the present occasion I ought to he briefer. For if there was no need of so many words then, there is no more need of them now, or if there was need of them then, what I said is enough, especially as there has been nothing new to add. For though I am every day told some items of news, which I think are conveyed to you, yet the upshot is the same, as is also the result: a result which I see as clearly in my mind as what I actually see with my eyes; and yet in truth I see nothing that I am not well assured that you see also. For though no one can prophesy the result of a battle, yet the result of a war I can see: and if not that, yet at least this — since one or the other side must win — how victory on the one side or the other will be used. And having a clear grasp of this, what I see convinces me that no evil will occur, if that shall have happened to me, even before, which is held out as the most formidable of all terrors. For to live on the terms on which one would then have to live, is a most miserable thing, while no philosopher has asserted death to be a miserable thing even for a prosperous man. But you are in a city in which the very walls of the houses seem capable of telling you these things, even at greater length and in nobler style. I assure you of this — though the miseries of others supply but a poor consolation — that you are now in no greater danger than anyone else, either of those who went away, or of those who remained. The one party are now in arms, the other in terror of the conqueror. But this, I repeat, is a poor consolation. There is another, which I hope you use, as I certainly do: I will never, while hive, let any-thing give me pain, so long as I have done nothing wrong: and if I cease to live, I shall cease to have any sensation. But to write this to you is again a case of "an owl to Athens." To me both you and your family and all your interests are, and while I live will be, the subject of the greatest concern. Good-bye.

§ Fam.6.4  DXXXIX (Fam. VI, 4) TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS (AT ATHENS) ROME (JANUARY) I have no news to give you, and if there is some after all, I know that you are usually informed of it by your family. About the future, however, difficult as it always is to speak, you may yet sometimes get nearer the truth by conjecture, when the matter is of the kind whose issue admits of being foreseen. In the present instance I think that I perceive thus much, that the war will not be a protracted one, though even as to that there are some who think I am wrong. For myself, even as I write this, I believe that something decisive has occurred, not that I know it for certain, but because the conjecture is an easy one. For while all chances in war are open, and the results of all battles are uncertain, yet on this occasion the forces on both sides are so large, and are said to be in such a state of preparation for a pitched battle, that whichever of the two conquers it will be no matter of surprise. It is an opinion that grows daily stronger that even if there is considerable difference in the merits of the causes of the combatants, there will yet be little difference in the way in which they will use their victory. Of the one side we have now had a pretty full experience: of the other there is no one that does not reflect how much reason there is to fear an armed victor inflamed with rage. On this point, if I appear to increase your anxiety while I ought to have been lightening it by consolation, I confess that I can find no consolation for our common disasters except that one, which after all — if you can avail yourself of it — is the highest and the one to which I have daily greater recourse: namely, that the consciousness of good intentions is the greatest consoler of misfortune, and that there is no serious evil except misconduct. As from this last we are so far removed, that our sentiments have been absolutely unimpeachable, while it is the result of our policy, not the policy itself, which is criticised: and as we have fulfilled all our obligations, let us bear what has happened without excessive grief. But I do not take upon myself, after all, to console you for misfortunes affecting all alike. Rightly to console them requires a greater intelligence, and to bear them requires unique courage. But anyone can easily show you why you ought not to feel any sorrow peculiar to yourself. For as to Caesar's decision concerning your restoration, though he has been somewhat slower in relieving you than I had thought he would be, I have no doubt whatever. As to the other party, I do not think that you are at a loss to know my sentiments. Finally, there is the pain that you feel at being so long absent from your family. It is distressing, especially considering the character of your sons, than which nothing can be more charming. But, as I said in my last letter, the state of things is such that everyone thinks his own position the most miserable of all, and most dislikes being precisely where he is. For my part, I consider that the most wretched of all are we who are at Rome, not merely because in all misfortunes it is more painful to see than to hear, but also because we are more exposed to all the risks of sudden perils, than if we were out of town. For myself however, who set up to console you, my feelings have become softened, not so much by literature, to which I have always been devoted, as by lapse of time. You remember how keen my sorrow was. In regard to that the first consolation is that I showed greater foresight than the rest, when I desired to have peace on any terms however inequitable. And although this was from chance, and not from any prophetic powers of mine, yet I take pleasure in this poor reputation for wisdom. Another source of consolation common to us both is that, if I am called upon to end my life, I shall not be torn from a republic such as I should grieve to lose, especially as I shall then be beyond all consciousness. An additional consolation is my age and the fact that my life is now all but over, which both gives me pleasure in reflecting upon its honourably accomplished career, and forbids my fearing any violence at a period to which nature herself has now almost brought me. Lastly, considering what a great man, or rather what great men, fell in that war, it seems shameless to decline to share the same fortune, if circumstances render it necessary. For my part, I regard everything as possible for myself, nor is there any evil too great for me to believe to be hanging over my head. But since there is more evil in fear than in the thing itself which is feared, I cease to indulge in it, especially as that now hangs over me, in which there will not only be no pain, but also the end of all pain. But I have said enough, or rather more than was needed. It is not love of talking, however, but affection for you that makes my letters too long. I was sorry to hear that Servius had left Athens; for I do not doubt that your daily meeting, and the conversation of a man at once most intimate and of the highest character and wisdom have been a great alleviation to you. Pray keep up your spirits, as you ought and are accustomed to do, by your own virtue. For myself, I shall look after everything with zeal and diligence which I may think to be in accordance with your wishes or for the interests of your self and your family. In doing so I shall imitate your goodness to me, I shall never equal your services.

§ Fam.15.17  DXL (Fam. XV, 17) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (AT BRUNDISIUM) ROME (JANUARY) YOU have most unreasonable letter-carriers, though I am not personally angry with them. But, after all, when they are leaving me they demand a letter, when they come to me they bring none. And even as to the former, they would have consulted my convenience better if they had given me some interval for writing; but they come to me with their travelling caps on, declaring that their company is waiting for them at the city gate. Therefore you must pardon me: you shall have here another short note, but expect full details presently. Yet why should I apologize to you, when your men come to me with empty hands and return to you with letters. Here — for after all I will write something to you — we have the death of P. Sulla the elder: according to some from an attack of footpads, according to others from an attack of indigestion. The people don't trouble themselves, for they are assured that he is dead and burnt. Your philosophy will enable you to bear this; though we have lost a well-known "feature of the city." People think that Caesar will be vexed for fear of his auctions becoming flat. Mindius Marcellus and Attius the paintseller are delighted at having lost a rival bidder. There is no news from Spain, and a very great anxiety for some: the rumours are rather gloomy, but are not authenticated. Our friend Pansa left town in military array on the 29th of December. It is enough to convince anyone of what you have recently begun to doubt, that "the good is desirable for its own sake." For because he has relieved many of their misfortunes, and has shown humanity in these evil times, he was attended by an extraordinary display of affection on the part of good men. I very much approve of your having stayed on at Brundisium, and I am very glad you have done so, and, by Hercules, I think that you will act wisely if you don't trouble yourself about vain things. Certainly I, who love you, shall be glad if it is so. And pray, next time you are sending a packet home, don't forget me. I will never allow anyone, if I know it, to go to you without a letter from me.

§ Fam.15.19  DXLI (Fam. XV, 19) C. CASSIUS LONGINUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) BRUNDISIUM (JANUARY) If you are well, I am glad. There is nothing, by Hercules, that I more like doing on this tour of mine than writing to you: for I seem to be talking and joking with you in person. Nor does this Come to pass owing to Catius's "images": for which expression I will in my next retort on you by quoting such a number of ill-educated Stoics, that you will acknowledge Catius to have been a true-born Athenian. That our friend Pansa left the city in military array with such expressions of goodwill from everybody, I rejoice both for his own sake and also, by Hercules, for the sake of all our party. For I hope that people will understand how odious cruelty is to everybody, and how attractive honesty and clemency: and that the objects which bad men seek and desire above everything come spontaneously to the good. For it is difficult to persuade men that "the good is desirable for its own sake": but that "pleasure" and "peace of mind" are obtained by virtue, justice, and "the good" is both true and convincing. In fact, Epicurus himself says-from whom all your Catiuses and Amafiniuses, those poor translators of his words, proceed — "to live pleasantly is impossible without living well and justly." So it is that Pansa, whose summum bonum is "pleasure," keeps his virtue; and those too who are called by you "pleasure-lovers" are "lovers of the good" and "lovers of the just," and practise and maintain all the virtues. Accordingly Sulla, whose judgment we are bound to respect, seeing that philosophers disagreed, did not ask what was good, but bought up all goods indifferently: whose death, by Hercules, I have borne with some fortitude! Nor will Caesar, after all, allow us to feel his loss very long: for he has plenty of condemned persons to restore for us in his place, nor will he be without some one to bid at his auctions as long as Sulla's son is in his sight. Now for public affairs. Write and tell me what is going on in Spain. Upon my life I feel anxious, and prefer to have our old and merciful master rather than a new and bloodthirsty one. You know what a fool Gnaeus is: you know how he thinks cruelty is courage: you know how he always thinks that we laugh at him. I am afraid he will want to retort the joke in rustic fashion with a blow of the sword. If you love me, write and say what is happening. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew whether you read this with an anxious or a quiet mind! For then I should at the same time know what it becomes me to do. Not to be too wearisome, I will say good-bye. Love me as ever. If Caesar has conquered, expect me with all speed.

§ Fam.9.13  DXLII (Fam. IX, 13) TO P. CORNELIUS DOLABELLA (IN SPAIN) (ROME, FEBRUARY) C. SUBERNIUS of Cales is both my friend and very closely connected with Lepta, who is a very intimate friend of mine. Having for the express purpose of avoiding the war one to Spain with M. Varro before it began, with a view of being in a province in which none of us had thought that there was likely to be any war after the defeat of Afranius, he found himself plunged into the precise evils which he had done his very best to avoid. For he was overtaken by a sudden war, which being set in motion by Scapula was afterwards raised to such serious proportions by Pompey, that it became impossible for him to extricate himself from that unhappy affair. M. Planius Heres, also of Cales, and also a very close friend of our friend Lepta, is in much the same position. These two men, therefore, I commend to your protection with a care, zeal, and heartfelt anxiety beyond which I cannot go in commending anyone. I wish it for their own sake, and in this matter I am also strongly influenced by motives of humanity no less than by friendship. For since Lepta is so anxious that his fortunes would seem to be at stake, I cannot but be in a state of anxiety next or even equal to his. Therefore, although I have often had proof of how much you loved me, yet I would have you be convinced that I shall have no better opportunity than this of judging that to be so. I therefore ask you, or, if you allow it, I implore you to save from disfranchisement two unhappy men, who owe their loss of citizenship to fortune — which none can avoid-rather than to any fault of their own. Be so good as to allow me by your help to bestow this favour both on the men themselves, who are my friends, and also on the municipium of Cales, with which I have strong ties, and lastly upon Lepta, whom I regard more than all the rest. What I am going to say I think is not much to the point, yet, after all, there is no harm in saying it. The property of one of them is very small, of the other scarcely up to the equestrian standard. Wherefore, seeing that Caesar, with his usual high-mindedness, has granted them their lives, and since there is very little else that can be taken from them, do secure these men their return, if you love me as much as I am sure you do. The only possible difficulty is the long journey; which their motive for not shirking is their desire to be with their families and to die at home. That you do your best and exert yourself, or rather that you carry it through — for as to your ability to do it I have no doubt — I strongly and repeatedly entreat you.

§ Fam.13.16  DXLIII (Fam. XIII, 16) CICERO TO CAESAR (IN SPAIN) ROME (FEBRUARY) OF all our men of rank there is no one of whom I have been fonder than of Publius Crassus the younger; and though I have had very great hopes of him from his earliest years, I began at once to entertain brilliant ideas of his abilities when I was informed of your high opinion of him. His freedman Apollonius I always valued and thought well of even when Crassus was alive: for he was very attentive to Crassus and extremely well suited to promote his best tastes: and, accordingly, was much liked by him. But after the death of Crassus he seemed the more worthy of admission to my confidence and friendship, because he regarded it as his duty to be attentive and polite to those whom the late Crassus had loved and by whom he had been beloved. Accordingly, he came to stay with me in Cilicia, and in many particulars his fidelity and good sense were of great use to me; and, as I think, he rendered you all the service in the Alexandrine war that was within the range of ability and fidelity. Hoping that you would think the same, he has started to join you in Spain — chiefly indeed on his own initiative, but also on my advice. I did not promise him a letter of recommendation, not because I doubted its weight with you, but because he did not seem to want any, for he had been on active service in your army, and had been put on your staff from respect to the memory of Crassus. And if he did choose to avail himself of introductions, I saw that he could accomplish that by means of others. It is a testimony to my opinion of him, which he values highly and which I also have found to have weight with you, that I hereby give him with pleasure. Well, then, I have found him to be well instructed and devoted to the highest pursuits, and that from a boy. For he lived much at my house from his boyhood along with the Stoic Diodotus, a man in my opinion of the most profound learning. At present, fired with admiration of your achievements, he desires to write a history of them in Greek. I think he is capable of doing it. He has great genius: great experience: for a long time past he has been engaged in that branch of study and literature: he is wonderfully eager to do justice to the immortal fame of your glorious achievements. You have here the record of my opinion, but your supreme wisdom will enable you to decide with much greater ease upon this point. Yet, after all, though I said I would not do so, I recommend him to you. Whatever favour you show him will be more than ordinarily gratifying to me.

§ Fam.4.5  DLIV (Fam. IV, 5) SERVIUS SULPICIUS TO CICERO (AT ASTURA) ATHENS (MARCH) WHEN I received the news of your daughter Tullia's death, I was indeed as much grieved and distressed as I was bound to be, and looked upon it as a calamity in which I shared. For, if I had been at home, I should not have failed to be at your side, and should have made my sorrow plain to you face to face. That kind of consolation involves much distress and pain, because the relations and friends, whose part it is to offer it, are themselves overcome by an equal sorrow. They cannot attempt it without many tears, so that they seem to require consolation themselves rather than to be able to afford it to others. Still I have decided to set down briefly for your benefit such thoughts as have occurred to my mind, not because I suppose them to be unknown to you, but because your sorrow may perhaps hinder you from being so keenly alive to them. Why is it that a private grief should agitate you so deeply? Think how fortune has hitherto dealt with us. Reflect that we have had snatched from us what ought to be no less dear to human beings than their children-country, honour, rank, every political distinction. What additional wound to your feelings could be inflicted by this particular loss? Or where is the heart that should not by this time have lost all sensibility and learn to regard everything else as of minor importance? Is it on her account, pray, that you sorrow? How many times have you recurred to the thought — and I have often been struck with the same idea — that in times like these theirs is far from being the worst fate to whom it has been granted to exchange life for a painless death? Now what was there at such an epoch that could greatly tempt her to live? What scope, what hope, what heart's Solace? That she might spend her life with some young and distinguished husband? How impossible for a man of your rank to select from the present generation of young men a son-in-law, to whose honour you might think yourself safe in trusting your child! Was it that she might bear children to cheer her with the sight of their vigorous youth? who might by their own character maintain the position handed down to them by their parent, might be expected to stand for the offices in their order, might exercise their freedom in supporting their friends? What single one of these prospects has not been taken away before it was given? But, it will be said, after all it is an evil to lose one's children. Yes, it is: only it is a worse one to endure and submit to the present state of things. I wish to mention to you a circumstance which gave me no common consolation, on the chance of its also proving capable of diminishing your sorrow. On my voyage from Asia, as I was sailing from Aegina towards Megara, I began to survey the localities that were on every side of me. Behind me was Aegina, in front Megara, on my right Piraeus, on my left Corinth: towns which at one time were most flourishing, but now lay before my eyes in ruin and decay. I began to reflect to myself thus: "Hah! do we mannikins feel rebellious if one of us perishes or is killed — we whose life ought to be still shorter — when the corpses of so many towns lie in helpless ruin? Will you please, Servius, restrain yourself and recollect that you are born a mortal man?" Believe me, I was no little strengthened by that reflexion. Now take the trouble, if you agree with me, to put this thought before your eyes. Not long ago all those most illustrious men perished at one blow: the empire of the Roman people suffered that huge loss: all the provinces were shaken to their foundations. If you have become the poorer by the frail spirit of one poor girl, are you agitated thus violently? If she had not died now, she would yet have had to die a few years hence, for she was mortal born. You, too, withdraw soul and thought from such things, and rather remember those which become the part you have played in life: that she lived as long as life had anything to give her; that her life outlasted that of the Republic; that she lived to see you — her own father-praetor, consul, and augur; that she married young men of the highest rank; that she had enjoyed nearly, every possible blessing; that, when the Republic fell, she departed from life. What fault have you or she to find with fortune on this score? In fine, do not forget that you are Cicero, and a man accustomed to instruct and advise others; and do not imitate bad physicians, who in the diseases of others profess to understand the art of healing, but are unable to prescribe for themselves. Rather suggest to yourself and bring home to your own mind the very maxims which you are accustomed to impress upon others. There is no sorrow beyond the power of time at length to diminish and soften: it is a reflexion on you that you should wait for this period, and not rather anticipate that result by the aid of your wisdom. But if there is any consciousness still existing in the world below, such was her love for you and her dutiful affection for all her family, that she certainly does not wish you to act as you are acting. Grant this to her-your lost one! Grant it to your friends and comrades who mourn with you in your sorrow! Grant it to your country, that if the need arises she may have the use of your services and advice. Finally — since we are reduced by fortune to the necessity of taking precautions on this point also — do not allow anyone to think that you are not mourning so much for your daughter as for the state of public affairs and the victory of others. I am ashamed to say any more to you on this subject, lest I should appear to distrust your wisdom. Therefore I will only make one suggestion before bringing my letter to an end. We have seen you on many occasions bear good fortune with a noble dignity which greatly enhanced your fame: now is the time for you to convince us that you are able to bear bad fortune equally well, and that it does not appear to you to be a heavier burden than you ought to think it. I would not have this be the only one of all the virtues that you do not possess. As far as I am concerned, when I learn that your mind is more composed, I will write you an account of what is going on here, and of the condition of the province. Good-bye.

§ Fam.13.15  DLXX (Fam. XIII, 15) TO C. IULIUS CAESAR (IN SPAIN) ASTURA (MARCH) Cicero to Caesar, imperator. I recommend Precilius to your special favour, the son of a connexion of your own, a very intimate friend of mine, and a most excellent man. For the young man himself I have an extraordinary affection on account of his rectitude, culture, and the spirit and affection he has displayed to myself: but of his father also I have had practical reason to know and thoroughly learn what a warm friend he has ever been to me. Now see! — this is the man that more than anyone else has been used to ridicule and chide me for not attaching myself to you, especially when invited to do so by you in the most Complimentary manner: "But in my breast my heart he ne'er could move." For I heard our nobles shouting: "Be staunch, and unborn men shall speak thee fair. He spake, and on him fell black clouds of woe." However, these same men give me consolation also: they wish even now — though once singed — to inflame me with the fire of glory, and speak thus: "Nay, not a coward's death nor shorn of fame, But after some high deed to live for aye." But they move me less than of yore, as you see. Accordingly from the high style of Homer I transfer myself to the true maxims of Euripides: "Out on the sage that cannot guide himself!" This is a verse that the elder Precilius praises to the skies, and says that a man may be able to see both "before and behind," and yet "Still may excel and rise above the crowd." But to return to what I began with: you will greatly oblige me, if you give this young man the benefit of the kindness which so distinguishes you, and will add to what I think you would do for the sake of the Precilii themselves as much as my recommendation may be worth. I have adopted a new style of letter to you, that you might understand that my recommendation is no common one. 430

§ Fam.5.13  DLXXI (Fam. V, 13) TO L. LUCCEIUS ASTURA (MARCH) Although the consolation contained in your letter is in itself exceedingly gratifying to me — for it displays the greatest kindness joined to an equal amount of good sense-yet quite the greatest profit which I received from that letter was the assurance that you were showing a noble disdain of human vicissitudes, and were thoroughly armed and prepared against fortune. And I assert it to be the highest compliment to philosophy that a man should not depend upon externals, nor allow his calculations as to the happiness or unhappiness of his life to be governed by anything outside himself. Now this conviction, though it had never been altogether lost — for it had sunk deep — had yet by the violence of tempests and a combination of misfortunes been considerably shaken and loosened at its roots. I see that you are for giving it support, and I also feel that by your last letter you have actually done so, and that with considerable success. Therefore, in my opinion, I ought to repeat this often, and not merely hint to you, but openly to declare, that nothing could be more acceptable to me than your letter. But while the arguments which you have collected with such taste and learning help to console me, yet nothing does so more than the clear perception I have got of the unbending firmness and unshaken confidence of your spirit, not to imitate which I think would be an utter disgrace. And so I consider that I am even braver than yourself — who give me lessons in courage — in this respect, that you appear to me still to cherish a hope that things will be some day better: at least "the changes and chances of gladiatorial combats" and your illustrations, as well as the arguments collected by you in your essay, were meant to forbid me entirely to despair of the republic. Accordingly, in one respect it is not so wonderful that you should be braver, since you still cherish hope: in another it is surprising that you should still have any hope. For what is there that is not so weakened as to make you acknowledge it to be practically destroyed and extinct? Cast your eye upon all the limbs of the republic, with which you are most intimately acquainted: you will not find one that is not broken or enfeebled. I would have gone into details, if I had seen things more clearly than you see them, or had been able to mention them without sorrow: though in accordance with your lessons and precepts all sorrow ought to be put away. Therefore I will bear my domestic misfortunes in the spirit of your admonition, and those of the state perhaps with even a little more courage than even you, who admonish me. For you are supported, as you say, by some hope; but I shall keep up my courage though I despair of everything, as in spite of that you exhort and admonish me to do. Yes, you give me pleasant reminders of what my conscience tells me I have done, and of those achievements which I performed with you among my foremost supporters. For I did for my country at least not less than I was bound to do, certainly more than was demanded from the spirit or wisdom of any one human being. Pray pardon my saying something about myself. You wished me to be relieved from my sorrow by thinking over these things. Well, even by mentioning them I obtain alleviation. Therefore, according to your advice, I will withdraw myself to the best of my power from all sorrows and anguish, and fix my mind on those topics by which prosperity receives an added charm, and adversity a support. I will be in your society also exactly as much as our respective age and health will allow; and if we cannot be together as much as we desire, we will so enjoy our union of hearts and community of tastes as to seem never separated.

§ Fam.6.21  DLXXII (Fam. VI, 21) TO C. TORANIUS (IN CORCYRA) (ROME? MARCH?) Although at the moment of my writing this letter, the end of this most disastrous war appears to be approaching, and already some decisive blow to have been struck, yet I daily mention that you were the one man in that immense army who agreed with me and I with you, and that we two alone saw what terrible evil was involved in that war. For when all hope of peace was shut out, victory itself was likely to be calamitous in its results, since it meant death if you were on the losing, and slavery if on the winning, side. Accordingly I, whom at the time those brave and wise men the Domitii and Lentuli declared to be frightened — and I was so without doubt, for I feared that what actually happened would occur — am now in my turn afraid of nothing, and am prepared for anything that may happen. So long as any precaution seemed possible, I was grieved at its being neglected. Now, however, when all is ruined, when no good can be done by wise policy, the only plan seems to be to bear with resignation whatever occurs: especially as death ends all, and my conscience tells me that, as long as I was able to do so, I consulted for the dignity of the republic and, when that was lost, determined to save its existence. I have written thus much, not with the object of talking about myself, but that you, who have been most closely united with me in sentiment and purpose, might entertain the same thoughts: for it is a great consolation to remember, even when there has been a disaster, that your presentiments were after all right and true. And I only hope we may eventually enjoy some form of constitution, and may live to compare the anxieties which we endured at the time when we were looked upon as timid, because we said that what has actually happened would do so. For your own fortunes I assure you that you have nothing to fear beyond the destruction affecting the republic in general; and of me I would have you think as of one who, to the best of his ability, will ever be ready with the utmost zeal to support your safety and that of your children. Good-bye.

§ Fam.4.6  DLXXIII (Fam. IV, 6) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) (FICULEA, APRIL) YES, indeed, my dear Servius, I would have wished — as you say — that you had been by my side at the time of my grievous loss. How much help your presence might have given me, both by consolation and by your taking an almost equal share in my sorrow, I can easily gather from the fact that after reading your letter I experienced a great feeling of relief. For not only was what you wrote calculated to soothe a mourner, but in offering me consolation you manifested no slight sorrow of heart yourself. Yet, after all, your son Servius by all the kindnesses of which such a time admitted made it evident, both how much he personally valued me, and how gratifying to you he thought such affection for me would be. His kind offices have of course often been pleasanter to me, yet never more acceptable. For myself again, it is not only your words and (I had almost said) your partnership in my sorrow that consoles me, it is your character also. For I think it a disgrace that I should not bear my loss as you — a man of such wisdom-think it should be borne. But at times I am taken by surprise and scarcely offer any resistance to my grief, because those consolations fail me, which were not wanting in a similar misfortune to those others, whose examples I put before my eyes. For instance, Quintus Maximus, who lost a son who had been consul and was of illustrious character and brilliant achievements, and Lucius Paullus, who lost two within seven days, and your kinsman Gallus and M. Cato, who each lost a son of the highest character and valour;-all lived in circumstances which permitted their own great position, earned by their public services, to assuage their grief. In my case, after losing the honours which you yourself mention, and which I had gained by the greatest possible exertions, there was only that one solace left which has now been torn away. My sad musings were not interrupted by the business of my friends, nor by the management of public affairs: there was nothing I cared to do in the forum: I could not bear the sight of the senate-house; I thought — as was the fact — that I had lost all the fruits both of my industry and of fortune. But while I thought that I shared these losses with you and certain others, and while I was conquering my feelings and forcing myself to bear them with patience, I had a refuge, one bosom where I could find repose, one in whose conversation and sweetness I could lay aside all anxieties and sorrows. But now, after such a crushing blow as this, the wounds which seemed to have healed break out afresh. For there is no republic now to offer me a refuge and a consolation by its good fortunes when I leave my home in sorrow, as there once was a home to receive me when I returned saddened by the state of public affairs. Hence I absent myself both from home and forum, because home can no longer console the sorrow which public affairs cause me, nor public affairs that which I suffer at home. All the more I look forward to your coming, and long to see you as soon as possible. No reasoning can give me greater solace than a renewal of our intercourse and conversation. However, I hope your arrival is approaching, for that is what I am told. For myself, while I have many reasons for wishing to see you as soon as possible, there is this one especially — that we may discuss beforehand on what principles we should live through this period of entire submission to the will of one man who is at once wise and liberal, far, as I think I perceive, from being hostile to me, and very friendly to you. But though that is so, yet it is a matter for serious thought what plans, I, don't say of action, but of passing a quiet life by his leave and kindness, we should adopt. Good-bye.

§ Fam.6.2  DLXXIV (Fam. VI, 2) TO AULUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS (AT ATHENS) (FICULEA, 20 APRIL) I BEG you not to think that forgetfulness of you is the cause of my writing to you less often than I used to do; but either illness — from which however I am now recovering — or absence from the city, which prevents my knowing who is starting to where you are. Wherefore I would have you make up your mind that I always remember you with the most perfect affection, and regard all your interests as of no less concern to me than my own. That your case has experienced more vicissitudes than people either wished or expected is not, believe me, in these bad times a thing to give you anxiety. For it is inevitable that the republic should either be burdened by an unending war, or should at last recover itself by its cessation, or should utterly perish. If arms are to carry the day, you have no need to fear either the party by whom you are being taken back, nor that which you actually assisted; if — when arms are either laid down by a composition or thrown down from sheer weariness — the state ever recovers its breath, you will be permitted to enjoy your position and property. But if universal ruin is to be the result, and the end is to be what that very clear-sighted man Marcus Antonius used long ago to fear when he suspected that all this misfortune was impending, there is this consolation — a wretched one indeed, especially for such a citizen and such a man as yourself, but yet the only one we can have — that no one may make a private grievance of what affects all alike. If, as I am sure you will, you rightly conceive the meaning of these few words — for it was not proper to trust more to an epistle-you will certainly understand even without a letter from me that you have something to hope, nothing under this or any definite form of the constitution to fear. If there is general ruin, as you would not wish, even if you could, to survive the republic, you must bear your fortune, especially one which involves no blame to you. But enough of this. Pray write and tell me how you are and where you intend to stay, that I may know where to write or come.

§ Fam.9.11  DLXXV (Fam. IX, 11) TO P. CORNELIUS DOLABELLA (IN SPAIN) (FICULEA, 20 APRIL) I HAD rather that even my own death had been the cause of your being without a letter from me than the misfortune which has so grievously afflicted me. I should have borne it at least with greater firmness if I had had you; for your wise conversation, no less than your marked affection for me, would have been a support. But since I am about, as I think, to see you before long, you shall find that though much broken I am yet in a state to receive great assistance from you; not that I am so crushed as to be unable to remember my manhood, or to think it right to give in to fortune. But in spite of that the old cheerfulness and gaiety, in which you took more delight than anybody else, have all been taken from me. Nevertheless, you will find in me the same fortitude and firmness — if I ever had these qualities — as you left. You say that you have to fight my battles: I don't so much care about my detractors being refuted by you, as I wish it to be known — as is plainly the case — that I retain your affection. I urge you repeatedly to let it be so, and to pardon the brevity of my letter; for in the first place I think I shall see you very shortly, and in the second place I have not yet sufficiently recovered my calmness for writing.

§ Fam.5.14  DLXXXIV (Fam. V, 14) L. LUCCEIUS TO CICERO (AT ASTURA) ROME (9 MAY) If you are well, I am glad: I am as usual, or even a little worse than usual. I have often wished to see you. I was surprised to find that you have not been at Rome since your departure: and I am still surprised at it. I don't feel certain as to the exact motive which withdraws you from Rome. If it is solitude that charms you, provided that you write or carry on some of your accustomed pursuits, I rejoice, and have no fault to find with your resolution. For nothing can be pleasanter than that, I don't mean merely in such unhappy and grievous times as these, but even when everything is peaceful and answerable to our wishes. Especially if your mind is either so far wearied as to need repose after heavy engagements, or so richly endowed as ever to be producing something capable of charming others and adding brilliancy to your own reputation. If, however, as you indicate, you have surrendered yourself to tears and melancholy thoughts, I grieve that you are grieving and suffering: I cannot — if you permit me to say what I really think-altogether acquit you of blame. For reflect: will you be the only man not to see what is as clear as day, you whose acuteness detects the most profound secrets? Will you fail to understand that you do no good by daily lamentations? Will you fail to understand that the sorrow is doubled, which your wisdom expects you to remove? Well, if I cannot prevail upon you by persuasion, I put it to you as a personal favour and as a special request, that, if you care to do anything for my sake, you would free yourself from the bonds of that sorrow and return to our society and to your ordinary way of life, whether that which we share in common with you, or that which is characteristic of and peculiar to yourself. My desire is not to worry you, if I cannot give you pleasure, by a display of earnestness on my part: what I desire is to prevent you from abiding by your present purpose. At present these two opposite desires do somewhat puzzle me — I should wish you either in regard to the latter of them to yield to my advice, or in regard to the former not to feel any annoyance with me. Good-bye.

§ Fam.5.15  DLXXXVI (Fam. V, 15) TO L. LUCCEIUS (AT ROME) ASTURA (MAY) YOUR perfect affection manifests itself in every sentence of the last letter which I received from you: not that it was anything new to me, but all the same it was grateful to my feelings and all that I could desire. I should have called it "delightful," had not that word been lost to me for ever: and not for that one reason which you imagine, and in regard to which you chide me severely, though in the gentlest and most affectionate terms, but because what ought to have been the remedies for that sorrow are all gone. Well then! Am I to seek comfort with my friends? How many of them are there? You know — for they were common to us both. Some of them have fallen, others I know not how have grown callous. With you indeed I might have gone on living, and there is nothing I should have liked better. Long-standing affection, habit, community of tastes — what tie, I ask, is there lacking to our union? Is it possible then for us to be together? Well, by Hercules, I know not what prevents it: but, at any rate, we have not been so hitherto, though we were neighbours at Tusculum and Puteoli, to say nothing of Rome; where, as the forum is a common meeting-place, nearness of residence does not matter. But by some misfortune our age has fallen upon circumstances, which, just when we ought to be at the very height of prosperity, make us ashamed even of being alive. For what had I to fly to when deprived of everything that could afford me distinction or console my feelings at home or in public life? Literature, I suppose. Well, I devote myself to that without ceasing. But in some indefinable way literature itself seems to shut me out from harbour and refuge, and as it were to reproach me for continuing a life in which there is nothing but extension of utter wretchedness. In these circumstances, do you wonder at my keeping away from the city, in which my own house has no pleasure to offer me, while the state of affairs, the men, the forum, and the senate-house are all utterly repulsive to me? Accordingly, what I seek from literature, on which I spend my whole time, is not a lasting cure but a brief oblivion of pain. But if you and I had done what on account of our daily fears it never occurred to us to do, we should have been always together, and neither would your weak health have annoyed me, nor my sorrow you. Let us aim at securing this as far as it may be possible: for what could suit both of us better? I will see you therefore at an early day.

§ 45.605  DCV (Att. XIII, 2a) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) TUSCULUM (27 MAY) Please order the letters to be delivered to Oppius and Balbus; and, by the way, see Piso whenever you can about the gold. If Faberius comes to town, you will please see that I am credited with the right amount, if there is to be any crediting at all. You will learn what it is from Eros. Ariarathes son of Ariobarzanes has come to Rome. He wants, I suppose, to buy some kingdom from Caesar. For, as at present situated, he hasn't a foot of ground to call his own. After all, our friend Sextus — as a sort of official entertainer-has monopolized him, for which I am not sorry. However, as I am very intimate with his brothers, owing to the great services I did them, I am writing to invite him to stay in my house. As I was sending Alexander for that purpose, I have given him this letter to take.

§ 45.608  DCVIII (Att. XIII, 2b) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) TUSCULUM, 29 MAY: So the auction of Peducaeus is tomorrow. Come when you can, therefore. Although perhaps Faberius will delay you; yet as soon as you are free. Our friend Dionysius complains loudly, and with some justice after all, that he is so long away from his pupils. He has written a long letter to me, and I believe also to you. In my opinion he will be still longer away. Yet I could have wished it were otherwise, for I miss him much. I am hoping for a letter from you: that is, not just yet, for I am writing this answer early in the morning.

§ Fam.4.12  DCXII (Fam. IV, 12) SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS TO CICERO (AT TUSCULUM) ATHENS, 31 MAY: Servius sends many good wishes to Cicero. Though I know that I shall be giving you no very pleasant news, yet since chance and nature bear the sway among us men, I thought it incumbent on me to give you information of whatever kind it might be. On the 23rd of May, on sailing into the Piraeus, I met my colleague M. Marcellus, and spent the day there in order to enjoy his society. Next day, when I parted from him with the design of going from Athens to Boeotia, and finishing what remained of my legal business, he told me that he intended to sail round Cape Malea and make for Italy. On the third day after that, just as I was intending to start from Athens, at the tenth hour of the night my friend Publius Postumius called on me with the information that my colleague M. Marcellus just after dinner had been stabbed with a dagger by his friend P. Magius Cilo, and had received two wounds, one in the stomach, a second in the head behind the ear; but that hopes were entertained that he might survive; and that Magius had killed himself afterwards. He added that he had been sent by Marcellus to tell me this, and to ask me to send some physicians. Accordingly, I summoned some physicians, and immediately started just as day was breaking. When I was not far from Piraeus, a slave of Acidinus met me bearing a note containing the information that Marcellus had expired a little before daybreak. So there is a man of most illustrious character cut off in a most distressing manner by the vilest of men. His personal enemies had spared him in consideration of his character; but one of his own friends was found to inflict death upon him. However, I continued my journey to his tent. There I found two freedmen and a few slaves: they said the rest had run away in terror, because their master had been killed in front of the tent. I was obliged to carry him back to the city in the same litter in which I had ridden down and to use my own bearers: and there, considering the means at my disposal at Athens, I saw to his having an honourable funeral. I could not induce the Athenians to grant him a place of burial within the city, as they alleged that they were prevented by religious scruples from doing so; and it is a fact that they had never granted that privilege to anyone. But they allowed us, which was the next best thing, to bury him in any gymnasium we chose. We chose a place in the most famous gymnasium in the world — that of the Academy — and there we burnt the body, and afterwards saw to these same Athenians giving out a contract for the construction of a marble monument over him. So I think I have done all for him alive and dead required by our colleagueship and close connexion. Goodbye. 31 May, Athens.

§ Fam.6.11  DCXIX (Fam. VI, 11) TO TREBIANUS (IN EXILE) (ROME, JUNE) Hitherto I have felt nothing more than a natural affection for Dolabella: I was under no obligation to him — for it never chanced to be necessary — and he was in my debt for my having stood by him in his hours of danger. Now, however, I have become bound to him by so strong an obligation — for having previously in regard to your property, and on the present occasion in the matter of your recall, gratified me to the fullest possible degree — that I can owe no one more than I do him. In regard to this matter, while I warmly congratulate you, I wish you to congratulate rather than thank me. The latter I do not in the least desire, the former you will be able to do with truth. For the rest, since your high character and worth have secured your return to your family, you will be acting in a manner worthy of your wisdom and magnanimity if you forget what you have lost, and think of what you have recovered. You will be living with your family; you will be living with us; you have gained more in personal consideration than you have lost in property: though of course your recovered position would have been a greater source of pleasure to you, if there had been any constitution left. Our friend Vestorius tells me in a letter that you express very great gratitude to me. This avowal on your part is, of course, very gratifying to me, and I have nothing to say against your making it, whether to others, or by heaven! to our friend Siro: for what one does one likes to have approved most by the wisest men. I desire to see you at the earliest opportunity.

§ 45.624  DCXXIV (Att. XIII, 13-14) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) ARPINUM (24 JUNE) Under the influence of your letter-because you wrote to me on the subject of Varro — I have taken my Academica bodily from men of the highest rank and transferred it to our friend and contemporary. I have also rearranged it so as to form four books instead of two. They Certainly have a more imposing effect than the previous edition, yet after all a good deal has been cut out. But I should much like you to write and tell me how you discovered that he wished it. This much at any rate I long to know — of whom you perceived him to have been jealous: unless perchance it was Brutus! By heaven, that's the last straw! However, I should be glad to know. The books themselves have left my hands — unless I am deceived by the usual author's self-love — so well elaborated, that there is nothing on the subject even among Greek writers to be compared with them. Pray do not be annoyed at your own loss in having had the treatise on the Academics now in your hands copied out in vain. This second edition, after all, will be much more brilliant, concise, and better. In these circumstances, however, I don't know which way to turn. I wish to satisfy Dolabella's earnest desire. I don't see my way to anything, and at the same time "I fear the Trojans." Now, even if I do hit on something, shall I be able to escape adverse criticism? I must therefore be idle or strike out some other kind of subject. But why concern ourselves about these trivialities? Pray tell me how my dear Attica is. She causes me deep anxiety. But I pore over your letter again and again: I find comfort in it. Nevertheless, I wait anxiously for a fresh one.

§ Fam.9.22  DCXXXI (Fam. IX, 22) TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) (ROME, JULY?) I like modesty in language: you prefer plain speaking. The latter I know was the doctrine of Zeno, a man by heaven! of keen insight, though our Academy had a serious quarrel with him. However, as I say, the Stoic doctrine is to call everything by its right name. They argue as follows: nothing is obscene, nothing unfit to be expressed: for if there is anything disgraceful in obscenity, it consists either in the thing meant or in the word: there is no third alternative. Now it is not in the thing meant. Accordingly, in tragedies as well as in comedies there is no concealment. For Comedy, take the character in the Demiurgus: you know the monologue beginning "Lately by chance," and you remember how Roscius recited, "So naked has she left me": the whole speech is covert in language, in meaning is very immodest. As for tragedy, what do you say to this: "The woman who" — notice the expression — "uses more than one bed." Or again, "He dared intrude upon her bed, Pheres." Or again: "A virgin I, and sheer against my will Did Iuppiter achieve his end by force." "Achieve his end" is a decent way of putting it; and yet it means the same as a coarser word, which however no one would have endured. You see then that though the thing meant is the same, yet, because the words are not so, there is thought to be no impropriety. Therefore obscenity is not in the thing meant: much less is it in the expressions. For if the thing meant by a word is not improper, the word which signifies it cannot be improper. For instance, you call the anus by another name; why not by its own? If mention of it is improper, don't mention it even under another name. If not, do so for choice by its own. The ancients called a tail a penis; whence comes the word penicillus ("paint-brush"), from its similarity in appearance. Nowadays penis is regarded as an obscene word. "But," you will say, "the famous Piso Frugi in his 'Annals' complains of young men being given up to lust (peni)." What you call in your letter by its own name, he, with more reserve, calls penis. Yes; but it is because many use the word in that sense that it has become as obscene as the word you used. Again, suppose we use the common phrase: "When we (cum nos) desired to visit you" — does that suggest obscenity? I remember once in the senate an eloquent consular expressing himself thus: "Am I to say that this or that is the greater culpability?" Could it have been expressed more obscenely? "Not so," you say, "for he did not mean it in that sense." Therefore obscenity does not consist in the word used: I have shown that it does not do so in the thing meant: therefore it does not exist anywhere. How entirely decent is the expression: "To exert oneself for children "? Even fathers beg their sons to do so, though they do not venture to mention the name of the "exertion." Socrates was taught the lyre by a very famous musician named Connus: do you think the name obscene? When we use the numeral terni there is no suggestion of obscenity: but if I speak of bini there is. "Only to Greeks," you will say. That shows that there is nothing obscene in a word, for I know Greek and yet use the word bini to you; and you assume that I am speaking Greek and not Latin. Again, we may speak without impropriety of "rue" (ruta) and "mint" (menta); but if I wish to use the diminutive of menta (mentula)-as one can perfectly well use that of ruta (rutula)-that is a forbidden word. So we may, without a breach of good manners, use the diminutive of tectoria (tectoriola); but if you try to do the same with pavimenta (pavimentula), you find yourself pulled up. Don't you see, then, that these are nothing but empty distinctions? That impropriety exists neither in word nor thing, and therefore is non-existent? The fact is that we introduce obscene meaning into words in themselves pure. For instance, is not the word divisio beyond reproach? Yet in it there is a word (visium or visio, "a stench") which may have an improper meaning, to which the last syllables of the word intercapedo (pedo πέρδω) correspond. Are we, therefore, to regard these words as obscene? Again, we make a ridiculous distinction: if we say, "So-and — so strangled his father," we don't prefix any apologetic word. But if we use the word of Aurelia or Lollia we must use such an apology. Nay, more, words that are not obscene have come to be considered so. The word "grind," he says, is shameful; much more the word "knead." And yet neither is obscene. The world is full of fools. Testes is quite a respectable word in a Court of law: elsewhere not too much so. Again, "Lanuvinian bags" is a decent phrase; not so "bags" of Cliternum. Again, can the same thing be at one time decent, at another indecent? Suppose a man to break wind — it is an outrage on decency. Presently he will be in a bath naked, and you will have no fault to find. Here is your Stoic decision — "The wise man will call a spade a spade." What a long commentary on a single word of yours! I am pleased that you have no scruple in saying anything to me. For my own part I maintain and shall maintain Plato's modesty: and accordingly, in my letter to you, I have expressed in veiled language what the Stoics express in the broadest: for they say that breaking wind should be as free as a hiccough. All honour then to the Kalends of March! Love me and keep yourself well.

§ Fam.5.9  DCXXXVI (Fam. V, 9) P. VATINIUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) NARONA, II JULY: Vatinius imperator to his friend Cicero greeting. If you are well, I am glad. I and the army are well. If you keep up your old habit of pleading causes for the defence, Publius Vatinius presents himself as a client and wishes a case pleaded on his behalf. You will not, I presume, repulse a man when in office, whom you accepted when in danger. While for myself, whom should I select or call upon in preference to one whose defence taught me how to win? Should I have any fear that he, who in support of my political existence disregarded the coalition of the most powerful men in the state, will fail to hunt down and crush beneath your feet the slanders and jealousies of a set of malignant nobodies? Wherefore, if you retain your old affection for me, undertake me bodily, and look upon this burden and service to whatever it may amount, as what you are bound to undertake and support on behalf of my political position. You know that my success is such as somehow or other easily to find detractors-not, by heaven! from any fault of my own: but what does that matter, if nevertheless by some fatality it does happen? If it turns out that there is anyone who desires to prevent the compliment being paid me, I beg you to let me count upon your usual good feeling to defend me in my absence. I append for your perusal an exact copy of my despatch to the senate on the result of my operations. I am told that your slave — the runaway reader — is with the Vardaei. You gave me no instructions about him; I, however, gave orders by anticipation that he should be hunted down by land and sea, and I shall certainly find him for you, unless he has escaped to Dalmatia, and even thence I will extract him sooner or later. Be sure you maintain your affection for me. Good-bye. 11 July, Narona.

§ Fam.9.8  DCXXXVIII (Fam. IX, 8) TO M. TARENTIUS VARRO (With a copy of the Academica) TUSCULUM (JULY 11?) To demand a gift, even if a man has promised it, is more than even a nation will generally do, unless under great provocation: nevertheless I have so much looked forward to your present that I venture to remind you of it, though not to press for it. So I have sent you four reminders who are not afflicted with excessive modesty: for you know how brazen-faced the New Academy is. Accordingly, I am sending ambassadors enlisted from its ranks, who I fear may by chance lodge a demand, though I have only commissioned them to ask a favour. I have been waiting in fact for a long time now, and have been holding back, so as not to address any work to you before I had received something from you, in order that I might repay you as nearly as possible in your own coin. But as you were somewhat slow in doing it — that is, as I construe it, somewhat unusually careful — I could not refrain from making manifest by such literary composition as I was capable of producing the union of our tastes and affections. I have therefore composed a dialogue purposing to be held between us in my villa at Cumae, Pomponius being there also. I have assigned to you the doctrines of Antiochus, which I thought I understood to have your approval; I have taken those of Philo for myself. I imagine that when you read it you will be surprised at our holding a conversation, which we never did hold; but you know the usual method of dialogues. At some future time, my dear Varro, we shall — if such is your pleasure-have many a long conversation of our own also. It may perhaps be some time hence: but let the fortune of the state excuse the past; it is our business to secure this ourselves. And oh that we might pursue these studies together in a time of tranquillity and with the constitution established on some basis, which if not good may be at any rate definitely fixed! Though in that case there would be other calls upon us-honourable responsibilities and political activities. As things are now, however, what is there to induce us to live without these studies? In my eyes indeed, even with them, it is barely worth while: when they are withdrawn, not even so much as that. But of this when we meet, and often hereafter. I hope your change of houses and new purchase may turn out everything you can desire. I think you were quite right to make them. Be careful of your health.

§ Fam.6.20  DCXLII (Fam. VI, 20) TO C. TORANIUS (IN CORCYRA) TUSCULUM (JULY) Three days ago I delivered a letter for you to the servants of Gnaeus Plancius. I shall therefore be briefer, and as I tried to console you before, on the present occasion I shall offer you some advice. I think your wisest course is to wait where you are until you can ascertain what you ought to do. For, over and above the danger of a long voyage in winter and along a coast very ill-furnished with harbours, which you will thus have avoided, there is this point also of no small importance — that you can start at a moment's notice from where you are as soon as you get any certain intelligence. There is besides no reason for your being all agog to present yourself to them on their way home. Several other fears occur to me which I have imparted to our friend Cilo. To cut a long story short: in your present unfortunate position you could be in no more convenient spot from which to transfer yourself with the greatest facility and despatch whithersoever it shall be necessary for you to go. Thus, if Caesar gets home up to time, you will be at hand. But if — for many accidents may happen — something either stops or delays him, you will be in a place to get full information. This I am strongly of opinion is your better course. For the future, as I have repeatedly impressed on you by letter, I would have you convince yourself that in regard to your position you have nothing to fear beyond the calamity common to the whole state. And though that is exceedingly serious, yet we have lived in such a way and are at such a time of life, that we ought to bear with courage whatever happens to us without fault on our part. Here in Rome all your family are in good health, and with the most perfect loyalty regret your absence, and retain their affection and respect for you. Mind you take care of your health and do not move from where you are without full consideration.

§ Fam.6.19  DCXLV (Fam. VI, 19) TO QUINTUS LEPTA (AT ROME) ASTURA (ABOUT THE END OF JULY) I am glad Macula has done his duty. His Falernian villa always seemed to me suitable for a place of call, if only it is enough roofed in to receive our retinue. In other respects I don't otherwise than like the situation. But I shall not on that account desert your Petrinian villa, for both the house and the picturesqueness of its situation make it suitable for residence rather than for a temporary lodging. As to some official management of these "royal" exhibitions, I have spoken to Oppius; for I have not seen Balbus since you left. He has such a bad fit of the gout that he declines visits. On the whole you would, in my opinion, be certainly acting more wisely if you did not undertake it; for your object in incurring all that labour you will in no wise attain. For the number of his intimate entourage is so great, that it is more likely that some one of them should drop off than that there should be an opening for anyone new, especially for one who has nothing to offer but his active service, in which Caesar will consider himself — if indeed he knows anything about it — to have conferred a favour rather than received one. However, we should look out for something, but something which may give you some distinction; otherwise I think that you not only ought not to seek for it, but should even avoid it. For myself, I think I shall pro-long my stay at Astura until Caesar's return, whenever that may be. Good-bye.

§ Fam.11.22  DCXLVII (Fam. XI, 22) TO TIRO (AT ROME) ASTURA (27 JULY) I hope from your letter that you are better, at any rate I desire it. Devote your whole energies to that, and don't have any uneasy feeling that you are acting against my wishes in staying away. You are with me if you are taking care of yourself. Therefore I would rather you were doing duty to your health than to my eyes and ears. For though it gives me pleasure both to hear and see you, it will give me much more pleasure If you are well. I am being idle here, because I don't write without an amanuensis; but I find extreme pleasure in reading. As you are on the spot, if there is anything in my handwriting which the copyists can't make out, please instruct them. There is at least one inserted passage somewhat difficult to decipher, which I often find it hard to make out myself-about Cato when he was four years old. Look after the dinner table, as you have been doing. Tertia will come so long as Publius is not there. Your friend Demetrius was never quite a Demetrius of Phalerum, but now he has become a regular Billienus. Accordingly, I appoint you my representative: you will look after him. Although, after all: about those men — you know the rest. However, if you do have any conversation with him, write and tell me, that I may have something to put into a letter, and may have as long a one as possible from you to read. Take care of your health, my dear Tiro: you can't oblige me more than by doing that.

§ Fam.16.17  DCL (Fam. XVI, 17) TO TIRO (AT ROME) ASTURA (29 JULY) I see what you are about: you want your letters also to be collected into books. But look here! You set up to be a standard of correctness in my writings — how came you to use such an unauthorized expression as "by faithfully devoting myself to my health"? How does fideliter come in there? The proper habitat of that word is in what refers to duty to others — though it often migrates to spheres not belonging to it. For instance: "learning," "house," "art," "land," can be called fidelis, granting, as Theophrastus holds, that the metaphor is not pushed too far. But of this when we meet. Demetrius called on me, from whose company to Rome I escaped with considerable adroitness. It is plain that you could not have seen him; he will be in town tomorrow, so you will see him. I myself think of starting early the day after. Your ill-health makes me very anxious, but devote yourself to its cure and omit no means. If you do that, consider that you are with me and are giving me the most complete satisfaction. Thank you for attending to Cuspius; for I am much interested in him. Good-bye.

§ Fam.16.19  DCLII (Fam. XVI, 19) TO TIRO (AT ROME) TUSCULUM (AUGUST) I am anxious to hear from you on many points, but much more to see you in person. Restore me Demetrius's friendship, and anything else you can that is worth having. I don't say a word to stir you up about the Aufidian debt: I know you are looking after it. But settle the business. If that is what is detaining you, I accept the excuse; if it is not, fly to me. I am very anxious for a letter from you. Good-bye.

§ Fam.7.24  DCLXII (Fam. VII, 24) TO M. FADIUS GALLUS (AT ROME) TUSCULUM (AUGUST) I find the traces of your affection whichever way I turn: for instance, quite recently in the matter of Tigellius. I perceived from your letter that you had taken a great deal of trouble. I therefore thank you for your kind intention. But I must say a few words on the subject. Cipius I think it was who said, "I am not asleep to everybody." Thus I too, my dear Gallus, am not a slave to everybody. Yet what, after all, is this slavery? In old times, when I was thought to be exercising royal power, I was not treated with such deference as I am now by all Caesar's most intimate friends, except by this fellow. I regard it as something gained that I no longer endure a fellow more pestilent than his native land, and I think his value has been pretty well appraised in the Hipponactean verses of Licinius Calvus. But observe the cause of his anger with me. I had undertaken Phamea's cause, for his own sake, because he was an intimate friend. Phamea came to me and said that the arbitrator had arranged to take his case on the very day on which the jury were obliged to consider their verdict in regard to P. Sestius. I answered that I could not possibly manage it: but that if he selected any other day he chose, I would not fail to appear for him. He, however, knowing that he had a grandson who was a fashionable flutist and singer, left me, as I thought, in a somewhat angry frame of mind. There is a pair of "Sardians-for-sale" for you, one more worthless than the other. You now know my position and the unfairness of that swaggerer. Send me your "Cato": I am eager to read it: that I haven't read it yet is a reflexion on us both.

§ Fam.7.25  DCLXV (Fam. VII, 25) TO M. FADIUS GALLUS (AT ROME) TUSCULUM (AUGUST) You lament having torn up the letter: don't vex yourself, it is all safe. You can get it from my house whenever you please. For the warning you give me I am much obliged, and I beg you will always act thus. For you seem to fear that, unless I keep on good terms with him, I may laugh "a real Sardinian laugh." But look out for yourself. Hands off: our master is coming sooner than we thought. I fear we Catonian blockheads may find ourselves on the block. My dear Gallus, don't imagine that anything could be better than that part of your letter which begins: "Everything else is slipping away." This in your ear in confidence: keep it to yourself: don't tell even your freed-man Apelles. Besides us two no one talks in that tone. Whether it is well or ill to do so, that is my look-out: but whatever it is, it is our speciality. Work on then, and don't stir a nail's breadth, as they say, from the pen; for it is the creator of eloquence: and for my part I now devote a considerable part of the night to it also.

§ Fam.12.18  DCLXVII (Fam. XII, 18) TO Q. CORNIFICIUS (IN SYRIA) ROME (OCTOBER) I will answer the end part of your last letter first — for I have noticed that that is what you great orators occasionally do. You express disappointment at not getting letters from me; whereas I never fail to send one whenever I am informed by your family that somebody is going to you. I think I gather from your letter that you are not likely to take any step rashly, nor to decide on any plan before you know in what direction that fellow Caecilius Bassus is likely to break out. That is what I had hoped, for I felt confidence in your wisdom, and now your very welcome letter makes me quite secure. And I beg you as a special favour that you will, as often as you can, make it possible for me to know what you are doing, what is being done, and also what you intend to do. Although I felt much distressed at your leaving me, I consoled myself at the time by thinking that you were going to a scene of the most profound tranquillity, and were leaving the cloud of serious troubles overhanging us. In both cases the actual truth has been the reverse. Where you are a war has broken out: with us there has followed a period of peace. Yet, after all, it is a peace in which, had you been here, there would have been many things that would not have pleased you, things in fact which do not please Caesar himself. In truth, this is always among the results of civil wars — that it is not only what the victor wishes that is done: concessions have also to be made to those by whose aid the victory was won. For my part, I have become so hardened that at our friend Caesar's games I saw T. Plancus and listened to the poems of Laberius and Publilius with the utmost sangfroid There is nothing I feel the lack of so much as of some one with whom to laugh at these things in a confidential and philosophic spirit. You will be the man, if you will only come as soon as possible. That you should do so I think is important to yourself as well as to me.

§ Fam.12.19  DCLXVIII (Fam. XII, 19) TO Q. CORNIFICIUS (IN SYRIA) ROME (?DECEMBER) I read your letter with very great pleasure. The most gratifying thing in it was to learn that mine had reached your hands; for I felt no doubt that you would find pleasure in reading it. I was afraid it would not reach you. I learn from your letter that the war now raging in Syria and the province of Syria itself have been put in your hands by Caesar. I hope it may turn out to your honour and success. I feel confident that it will do so, for I have full reliance both on your activity and prudence. But what you say as to the suspicion of a Parthian invasion caused me great uneasiness. For I was able to conjecture the amount of your forces, and your letter confirms my calculation. Therefore I can only hope that that nation will not move until the legions reach you, which I hear are on their way But if you have not forces adequate for the struggle, do not forget to follow the policy of M. Bibulus, who kept himself shut up in a very strongly fortified and well-supplied town, as long as the Parthians were in the province. But you will settle these points better on the spot, and in view of the actual circumstances. For myself, I shall continue to feel anxious as to what you are doing, until I know what you have done. I have never had anyone to whom to give a letter without giving one. I beg you to do the same, and above all, when you write to your family, to assure them of my devotion to you.

§ Fam.13.4  DCLXIX (Fam. XIII, 4) TO Q. VALERIUS ORCA (IN ETRURIA) ROME (AUTUMN) Marcus Cicero greets Quintus Valerius, son of Quintus, legatus pro praetore. I have very close ties with the townsmen of Volaterrae. In fact, having received great kindness from me, they repaid me to the full: for they never failed me either in my prosperity or my adversity. And even if there were no special reason for our union, yet, having a very warm affection for you, and feeling that you have a high value for me, I should have warned and urged you to have a regard for their fortunes, especially as their case for the retention of civil rights is unusually strong: first, because by the blessing of heaven they contrived to elude the vindictive measures of the Sullan epoch; and secondly, because my defence of them in my consulship received the hearty approval of the Roman people. For the tribunes having promulgated an exceedingly unfair law about their lands, I easily persuaded the senate and people of Rome to allow citizens, whom fortune had spared, to retain their rights. This policy of mine was confirmed by the agrarian law of Gaius Caesar in his first consulship, which freed the territory and town of Volaterrae from all danger for ever. This makes me feel sure that a man who seeks the support of new adherents will wish that old benefits conferred by him should be maintained. It is only therefore what your prudence would dictate, either to keep to the precedent set by the man to whose party and authority you have with so much personal honour adhered, or at least to reserve the whole case for his decision. There is one thing about which you can have no hesitation: you would wish to have a town of such sound and well-established credit and of so honourable a character for ever bound to you by a service of the highest utility on your part. Thus far the purpose of my words is to exhort and persuade you. What remains will be of the nature of a personal request. For I don't wish you to think that I offer you advice for your own sake only, but that I am also preferring a request to you and asking for what is of consequence to myself. Well then, you will oblige me in the highest degree, if you decide that the Volaterrani are to be left intact in every respect and in full possession of their rights. Their homes and houses, their property and fortunes — which have already been preserved by the immortal gods, as well as by the most eminent citizens of our Republic with the warmest approval of the Roman people — I commend to your honour, justice, and liberality. If circumstances had granted me the power, proportionate to my old influence, of defending the Volaterrani in the same way as I was accustomed to protect my friends, there is no service, no struggle in fact calculated to be of use to them, that I would have omitted. But since I feel sure that with you I have no less influence than I ever had with all the world, I beg you in the name of close ties and of the mutual and equal goodwill existing between us, to serve the people of Volaterrae in such a way as to make them think that you have been set over that business by a special interposition of providence, as the one man with whom I, their undeviating supporter, was able to exert the greatest influence.

§ Fam.13.5  DCLXX (Fam. XIII, 5) TO Q. VALERIUS ORCA (IN ETRURIA) ROME (AUTUMN) CICERO greets Q. Valerius, legatus pro praetore. I am not sorry that my friendship for you is known as widely as possible. Not, however, that I wish on that plea — as you may well believe — to prevent your carrying out the business you have undertaken with good faith and activity, to the satisfaction of Caesar, who has intrusted to you a matter of great importance and difficulty. For though I am besieged with petitions from men who are assured of your kindness to me, I am always careful not to embarrass you in the performance of your duty by any self-seeking on my part. I have been very intimate with Gaius Curtius from our earliest days. I was grieved at the most undeserved calamity which befell him and the others in the Sullan epoch: and when it appeared that those who had suffered a similar wrong, though they lost all their property, were yet allowed by universal consent to return to their native country, I supported the removal of his disability. This man has a holding in the territory of Volaterrae, having betaken himself to it as a kind of salvage from shipwreck. Recently also Caesar has selected him for a seat in the senate — a rank which he can scarcely maintain if he loses this holding. Now it is a great hardship that, having been raised in rank, he should occupy an inferior position in regard to wealth, and it is not at all consistent that a man who is a senator by Caesar's favour should be dispossessed of land which is being divided by Caesar's order. But I don't so much care to write at length on the legal merits of the case, lest I should be thought to have had influence with you owing to its strength rather than from your personal feeling for me. Wherefore I beg you with more than common earnestness to look upon Gaius Curtius's affair as mine; and whatever you do for my sake, I beg you to consider, though you have done it for Gaius Curtius, that I have from your hand what he has obtained through my influence. I reiterate this request with warmth.

§ Fam.13.7  DCLXXI (Fam. XIII, 7) TO GAIUS CLUVIUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL) ROME (AUTUMN) WHEN on your departure for Gaul you called at my house, as was natural from our close connexion and the great courtesy you have always shown to me, I spoke to you about the land in Gaul which paid rent to the municipal town of Atella; and I indicated to you how warmly interested I was in the welfare of that town. Since your departure, however; as a question has arisen as to a matter of great importance to this most respectable town — very closely connected with me — and as to the performance of a duty on my part, I thought I ought to write to you in more explicit terms. I am quite aware, however, of the nature of the circumstances' and the limits of your power, and clearly understand that what Caesar has assigned to you is the transaction of a certain business, not the exercise of judicial powers. Therefore I only ask of you as much as I think that you have both the power and the will to do for my sake. And to begin with I would have you consider — what is the fact — that the whole wealth of the town consists of that rent, while in the present state of affairs it is hard-pressed by very serious burdens, and is labouring under the greatest difficulties. Although this seems to be a misfortune common to many others, I assure you that certain special calamities have befallen this particular municipality, which I don't specify for fear that, while bewailing the miseries of my own connexions. I should seem to be casting a reflexion upon certain persons upon whom I have no wish to do so. Accordingly, if I had' not had a strong hope of our being able to secure the approval of Gaius Caesar for the plea of this town, there would have been no reason for my making an effort at this time to secure any favour from you. But because I feel sure that he will take into consideration both the respectability of the town and the justice of its case, and also its good disposition towards himself, I have not hesitated to urge upon you to reserve this cause for his decision. This request I should nevertheless have made to you if I had never heard of your having done anything of the sort; yet I did conceive a stronger hope of gaining my request when I was told that the people of Regium had obtained the same favour from you. Although these latter have a certain connexion with you, yet your affection for me compels me to hope that the indulgence you extend to your own friends you will also extend to mine: especially as these are the only ones for whom I prefer the request, whereas I have a considerable number of connexions who are in a similarly hard case. Though I think you believe that I am not doing this without good reason, and am not influenced by a frivolous and selfish motive in preferring this request, yet I would have you believe my definite assertion, that I owe a very great deal to this municipality, and that there has been no time either of my prosperity or adversity in which its zeal for my service has not been displayed in a remarkable manner. Wherefore again and again, in the name of our close union and of your unbroken and eminent affection for me, I ask and implore this of you with no common earnestness. Since you understand that the fortunes of a town are involved, which is very closely connected with me by ties of relationship, interchange of services and affection, do, if we obtain from Caesar what we hope, allow us to consider that we have obtained it by your kindness. But if we do not,. instead of that allow us to consider that at least you have done your best to enable us to obtain it. By doing this you will not only have greatly obliged me, but by a signal service you will have bound to yourself and your family men of the highest character, a number of the most honourable as well as the most grateful people, eminently worthy of being connected with you.

§ Fam.13.8  DCLXXII (Fam. XIII, 8) TO MARCUS RUTILIUS (IN ETRURIA) ROME (AUTUMN) As I was conscious of how much I valued you, and had had practical proof of your kind feeling towards me, I did not hesitate to make a request to you which it was incumbent upon me to make. How much I value P. Sestius I know in my own heart; how much I am bound to value him is known both to you and all the world. Having learnt from others that you were very much attached to me, he asked me to write in very explicit terms to you about the affair of Gaius Albinius, a member of the senate, whose daughter is the mother of L. Sestius, a young man of very high character, the son of P. Sestius. My reason for writing this letter is to inform you that not only am I anxious on behalf of P. Sestius, but that Sestius is so also on behalf of Albinius. The case is this: Gaius Albinius received some properties from M. Laberius on a valuation, properties which Laberius had bought from Caesar forming part of the property of Plotius. If I should say that it was not in the interests of the state that those properties should be divided, I should appear to be trying to enlighten you rather than to be asking a favour of you. Nevertheless, since it is Caesar's will that the sales and assignments of land effected by Sulla should hold good, in order to give the impression of greater security to his own, pray what security can Caesar's own sales have, if properties are divided which he himself caused to be sold? However, that is a difficulty for your own wisdom to consider. My plain request to you — and I could not make it with greater earnestness or in a juster cause or more from the bottom of my heart — is that you should spare Albinius and not lay a finger on the properties of Laberius. You will not only cause me great delight, but will in a certain sense raise my reputation also, if I am the cause of Publius Sestius satisfying the claims of a man very closely connected with me, since I owe him more than anyone else in the world. I warmly and repeatedly beg you to do so. You cannot do me a greater favour: you shall have reason to know that I am exceedingly obliged by it.

§ Fam.5.11  DCLXXIII (Fam. V, 11) TO PUBLIUS VATINIUS (IN ILLYRICUM) ROME (OCTOBER OR NOVEMBER) I am not surprised that you appreciate my services, for I know you to be the most grateful man in the world, and that I have never ceased to declare. For you have not merely felt grateful, you have shown it in practice also by the most complete return possible. Therefore, in all your remaining concerns, you shall find that I have the same zeal and the same goodwill to you. You commend to me that most honourable lady your wife Pompeia. I therefore at once spoke to Sura on reading your letter, and bade him tell her from me to let me know anything she wanted done, and to say that I would do it with the greatest zeal and assiduity. And this I will do, and if it seems necessary I will call upon her personally. Please write and tell her not to consider anything to be so great or so small, as to seem to me difficult or beneath my notice. Everything which I may do in your interest will appear to me at once unlaborious and honourable. As to Dionysius, as you love me, settle the business. Whatever pledge you give him I will make good. If; however, he shows himself the villain that he is, you will lead him captive in your triumph. Confound the Dalmatians who are giving you all this trouble! But, as you say, they will soon be taken prisoners, and will add a lustre to your campaign, for they have always been considered a warlike people.

§ Fam.7.29  DCLXXIV (Fam. VII, 29) MANIUS CURIUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) PATRAE, 29 OCTOBER: If you are well, I am glad; for I am yours by usus, Atticus's in full dominium. therefore the usufruct of me is yours, the ownership his. If indeed he puts us up for sale in one lot, he won't make much of us. But what an addition to my selling price will be my declaration that whatever I am or have, and whatever position I enjoy in the world, is all owing to you! Wherefore, my dear Cicero, persevere in your constant care for my welfare, and recommend me in a letter of introduction of the finest brand to the successor of Sulpicius. I shall thereby have greater facility in obeying your maxims, and of seeing you to my joy by the spring, and of breaking up my establishment and bringing my belongings safely home. But, my dear distinguished friend, do not show this letter to Atticus. Let him continue to regard me as heart and soul his, and not as one who "whitewashes two walls out of the same pot." So, patron mine, good-bye to you, and give Tiro kind regards from me. 29 October.

§ 45.675  DCLXXV (Fam. V, 10a) P. VATINIUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) NARONA, 5 DECEMBER: AFTER the thanksgiving had been decreed in my honour I started for Dalmatia. I stormed and took six fortified towns. The largest of them, indeed, I have had practically to storm four times for I took four towers and four walls and their entire citadel, which snow, cold, and rain forced me to evacuate. It was mortifying to be obliged thus to abandon a town already taken and a war practically finished. Wherefore I beg you, if there is any occasion for it, to plead my cause with Caesar, and to regard it as your duty to defend my character in every respect, with the full Conviction that you have no more devoted friend than myself. Good-bye. 5 December, Narona.

§ Fam.9.12  DCLXXVII (Fam. IX, 12) TO P. CORNELIUS DOLABELLA (AT BAIAE) PUTEOLI (DECEMBER) I congratulate our favourite Baiae on its becoming, as you say, a healthy place; unless perchance it is fond of and flatters you and, so long as you are there, has forgotten its usual habits. If that is really so, it doesn't at all surprise me that sky and land are foregoing their usual evil effects. My poor little speech for Deiotarus, for which you asked, I have with me, though I thought I had not. Accordingly I am sending it to you. Please read it with the understanding that it is a slight and weak case and not much worthy of being committed to writing. But I wished to send an old host and friend a small present — of loose texture and coarse thread — as his own presents usually are. As for yourself, I would have you show wisdom and courage, in order that the moderation and dignity of your bearing may throw discredit on the unfair treatment you have met with from others. 688

§ Fam.13.30  DCLXXIX (Fam. XIII, 30) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME: THERE is a certain L. Manlius Sosis. He is a native of Catina; but along with the rest of the people of Naples became a Roman citizen, and is a member of the council at Naples, as he had been enrolled as a citizen of that municipality before the citizenship was granted to the Italian allies. His brother has lately died at Catina. I don't think he is likely to have any dispute about the inheritance, and he is at this moment in possession of the property. But as he has besides some business of old standing in his native Sicily, I commend to you both this inheritance from his brother and all other of his concerns, and above all the man himself as being of the highest character and very intimate with myself, accomplished in those studies of literature and philosophy which form my chief delight. I beg you, therefore, to understand that, whether he has or has not come to Sicily, he is one of my most intimate and closely united friends, and to treat him in such a way as to make him understand that my recommendation has been of great service to him.

§ Fam.13.31  DCLXXX (Fam. XIII, 31) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME: I am very intimate with Gaius Flavius, an honourable and accomplished Roman knight. For he was a great friend of my son-in-law Gaius Piso, and both he and his brother L. Flavius pay me very constant attention. Wherefore I would wish you, out of consideration for me, to treat Gaius Flavius with the utmost possible respect and liberality, in whatever ways you can do so with honour and due regard for your position. You cannot possibly oblige me more than by so doing. But besides that, I assure you — and I don't say this from any ulterior motive, but influenced by the truth no less than by friendship and personal connexion — that you will extract great pleasure from the services and assiduity of Gaius Flavius, as also from his brilliant position and popularity among his own friends. Good-bye.

§ Fam.13.32  DCLXXXI (Fam. XIII, 32) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME: IN the town of Halesa, so well known for its wealth and high character, I have some friends very closely united to me by the ties of hospitality and intimacy named M. Clodius Archagethus and C. Clodius Philo. But I am afraid that, owing to the number of people I recommend to you, I may appear to be putting all my recommendations on the same footing from some ulterior motive. Still, I would have you believe that this family and these members of it are united to me by a long-standing friendship, by mutual services, and by goodwill. Therefore I beg you, with more than common earnestness, to oblige them in every way, as far as your honour and official position shall allow you. You will exceedingly oblige me by doing so.

§ Fam.13.33  DCLXXXII (Fam. XIII, 33) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME: I am exceedingly intimate with Gnaeus Otacilius Naso, certainly as much so as with any man of his order. For in our daily intercourse I am greatly delighted with his kindness and honesty. You need not stop to see in what precise words I recommend a man to you, with whom I am as intimate as I have said. He has some business in your province, which is being managed by his freedmen Hilarus, Antigonus, and Demostratus. These men and all Naso's affairs I commend to you as though they were my own. I shall feel very grateful if I learn that this recommendation has had great weight with you. Good-bye.

§ Fam.13.34  DCLXXXIII (Fam. XIII, 34) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME: I have ties of hospitality with Lyson, son of Lyson, of Lilybaeum, dating from the times of his grandfather. I continue to receive strong proofs of his regard, and have ascertained him to be worthy of his father and grandfather. Wherefore I recommend him to you with more than common earnestness, and warmly beg you to be at the trouble to make him feel that my recommendation has been of the utmost assistance to him and very greatly to his honour.

§ Fam.13.35  DCLXXXIV (Fam. XIII, 35) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME: C. Avianius Philoxenus showed me hospitality in old times, and beyond that is also an intimate friend, whom Caesar as a favour to me enrolled among the citizens of New Comum. He took the name of Avianius, because his most intimate friend was Flaccus Avianius, a man, as I think you know, who was a very dear friend of mine. I mention all these facts to show you that this recommendation of mine is no ordinary one. I therefore beg you to oblige him in everything which you can do without inconvenience, to consider him as one of your friends, and to make him feel that this letter of mine has been of great service to him. You will oblige me in no common degree by so doing.

§ Fam.13.36  DCLXXXV (Fam. XIII, 36) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME: WITH Demetrius Megas I have ancient ties of hospitality, and a friendship such as I had with no other Sicilian. Dolabella at my request procured him citizenship from Caesar, and I was present when it was bestowed. Accordingly his name is now P. Cornelius. And when, on account of certain infamous persons who used to sell grants from him, Caesar ordered the tablet containing the names of those who had received citizenship to be taken down, he told the same Dolabella in my hearing that he had nothing to fear as to Megas, and that his grant to him held good. I wished you to know this in order that you might reckon him as a Roman citizen; and in all other respects I commend him to you with an earnestness beyond which I have not gone with respect to anyone. You will do me the very greatest favour if you show him by your treatment of him that my recommendation has been greatly to his honour.

§ Fam.13.37  DCLXXXVI (Fam. XIII, 37) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME: I recommend Hippias, son of Philoxenus, of Calacta, to you with more than common earnestness. His property, as the matter has been reported to me, is held by the state for a debt which is not properly his, contrary to the laws of the Calactini. If that is so, even without any recommendation from me, the merits of the case itself ought to secure him your assistance. But however the matter stands, I beg you as a compliment to me to expedite his case, and both in this and in all other matters to oblige him as far as your honour and position will allow. It will be doing me a very great favour.

§ Fam.13.38  DCLXXXVII (Fam. XIII, 38) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME: L. Bruttius a Roman knight, a young man of every sort of accomplishment, is among my most intimate friends, and shows me very constant attention. I have had a great friendship with his father from the time of my Sicilian quaestorship. In point of fact Bruttius is at this moment staying with me at Rome: still I recommend his house, his property, and his agents to you with an earnestness beyond which I cannot go in such a recommendation. You will exceedingly oblige me if you take the trouble to let Bruttius feel, as I have assured him will be the case, that my recommendation has been of great assistance to him.

§ Fam.13.39  DCLXXXVIII (Fam. XIII, 39) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN SICILY) ROME: AN old connexion grew up between the Titurnian family and myself. Of this family the last survivor is M. Titurnius Rufus, whom I am bound to protect with every possible care and attention. It is then in your power to make him think that he has a sufficient protector in me. Wherefore I recommend him to you with more than common earnestness, and I beg you to make him feel that this recommendation has been of great assistance to him. You will very greatly oblige me by doing so.

§ Fam.16.18  DCLXXXIX (Fam. XVI, 18) TO TIRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (DECEMBER) WHAT do you say? Ought it not be so? I think it ought for my part. The word SUO ought also to be added. But, if you please, let us avoid exciting prejudice, which however I have myself often neglected. I am glad the sweating has done you good. If only Tusculum has done so also, good heavens! what a charm that would add to the place in my eyes! But if you love me, as you do, or make a very pretty imitation of doing — an imitation which quite answers its purpose-well, however that may be, nurse your health now, to which, while devoting yourself to my service, you have not been devoted enough. You know what it requires-good digestion, freedom from fatigue, moderate walking, friction of the skin, easy operation of the bowels. Be sure you come back looking well. That would make me still fonder of Tusculum as well as of you. Stir up Parhedrus to hire the garden for himself: by doing so you will keep the actual gardener up to the mark. That utter scoundrel Helico used to pay a thousand sesterces, when there was no hot-bed, no water turned on, no wall, no garden-shed. Is he to have the laugh of us, after we have spent all that money? Warm the fellow up, as I do Motho and so get plenty of flowers. What arrangement is being made about the Crabra, though now indeed we have enough water and to spare, I should yet wish to know. I will send the sun-dial and books, if the weather is dry. But have you no books with you, or are you composing in the Sophoclean vein? Mind you have something to show for your labour. Caesar's friend Aulus Ligurius is dead: he was a good man and a good friend to me. Let me know when we are to expect you. Take great care of yourself. Good-bye

§ Fam.16.20  DCXC (Fam. XVI, 20) TO TIRO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (DECEMBER) Upon my life, my dear Tiro, your health makes me very uneasy. But I feel confident that if you continue to take the same care as you have begun to do, you will soon be strong. Arrange the books, get the catalogue made when it pleases Metrodorus, since you have to live according to his orders. Settle with the gardener as you think right. You can go to see the gladiators on the first, and return home next day. And I think that is what you had better do. But as you please. Take great care of yourself, if you love me. Good-bye.

§ Fam.7.30  DCXCI (Fam. VII, 30) TO MANIUS CURIUS (AT PATRAE) ROME (JANUARY) No, I now neither urge nor ask you to return home. Nay, I am longing myself to fly away and to arrive somewhere, where "I may hear neither the name nor the deeds of the Pelopidae." You could scarcely believe how disgraceful my conduct appears to me in countenancing the present state of things. Truly, I think you foresaw long ago what was impending, at the time when you fled from Rome. Though these things are painful even to hear of; yet after all hearing is more bearable than seeing. At any rate you were not on the Campus Martius when, the comitia for the quaestors being opened at 7 o'clock in the morning, the curule chair of Q. Maximus — whom that party affirmed to be consul — was set in its place, and then on his death being announced was removed: whereupon Caesar, who had taken the auspices as for a comitia tributa, held a comitia centuriata, and between 12 and 1 o'clock announced the election of a consul to hold office till the 1st of January, which was the next day. Thus I may inform you that no one breakfasted in the consulship of Caninius. However, no mischief was done while he was consul, for he was of such astonishing vigilance that throughout his consulship he never had a wink of sleep. You think this a joke, for you are not here. If you had been you would not have refrained from tears. There is a great deal else that I might tell you; for there are countless transactions of the same kind. I in fact could not have endured them had I not taken refuge in the harbour of Philosophy, and had I not had my friend Atticus as a companion in my studies. You say you are his by right of ownership and legal bond, but mine in regard to enjoyment and profit: well, I am content with that, for a man's property may be defined as that which he enjoys and of which he has the profit. But of this another time at greater length. Acilius, who has been despatched to Greece with the legions, is under a great obligation to me — for he has been twice successfully defended by me on a capital charge. He is not a man either of an ungrateful disposition, and pays me very constant attention. I have written to him in very strong terms about you, and am attaching the letter to this packet. Please let me know how he has taken it, and what promises he has made you.

§ Fam.13.50  DCXCII (Fam. XIII, 50) TO MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO (IN ACHAIA) ROME (JANUARY) I am presuming upon your regard for me, which you made me clearly perceive all the time we were at Brundisium, to write to you in a familiar style and as though I had a claim to do so, if there is any matter as to which I am specially anxious. Manius Curius, who is a banker at Patrae is an intimate friend of mine. No union could be closer than ours. He has done me many kindnesses, and I have done him many also. Above all, there is the strongest mutual affection between us. That being the case, if you have anything to hope from my friendship, if you wish to make the good offices and kindnesses which you bestowed on me at Brundisium still more a subject of gratitude to me (though I am already exceedingly grateful), if you perceive that I am beloved by all your family, pray extend and enlarge your favours to me so far as to keep Manius Curius safe and sound — as the phrase goes — unharmed and free from every sort of annoyance, loss, and molestation. I pledge you my word, and all your friends will be my guarantees for it, that you will reap very great advantage and very high satisfaction from my friendship and from your own kindness.

§ 44.693  DCXCIII (Fam. V, 10b) P. VATINIUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) NARONA (JANUARY) If you are well I am glad; I am also well. I have not yet fished out anything about your Dionysius; and the less so, because the Dalmatian cold, which forced me out of that country, has again frozen me here. However, I will not give up till I have sooner or later got hold of him. Yet after all you are always setting me some hard task. You wrote something or other to me about Catilius — earnestly pleading for his pardon. Don't talk about our friend Sextus Servilius, for by heaven I am as fond of him as you are. But are these the sort of clients, and these the sort of causes which you undertake? Catilius — the cruellest fellow in the world, who has murdered, abducted, ruined so many free-born men, matrons, citizens of Rome! Who has laid waste so many countries! The fellow — half-ape and not worth twopence — took up arms against me, and I have taken him prisoner in war. But after all, my dear Cicero, what can I do? I swear to you that I desire to do anything you ask. My sentence upon him and this punishment which I was going to inflict on him as my prisoner, I freely remit in deference to your request. But what am I to say to those who demand his punishment for the plunder of their property, the capture of their ships, the murder of their brothers, sons, and parents? Even if I had, by Jove, the impudence of Appius, into whose place in the college I was elected, I could not face that out. What is to be done then? I will do my best to carry out anything that I know you wish. He is being defended by Q. Volusius, a pupil of your own, if that fact may chance to rout his enemies. That is his best hope. Pray defend me at Rome if there is any occasion for it. Caesar is still treating me unfairly. He still doesn't bring any motion before the senate about the supplication in my honour, or about my Dalmatian campaign: as though my operations in Dalmatia did not in truth most thoroughly deserve a triumph! For if I have to wait until I finish the whole war, there are thirty ancient cities in Dalmatia; those which the Dalmatians have themselves annexed are more than sixty. If no supplication is to be decreed in my honour unless I storm all these, then I am on a very different footing from all other commanders. 711

§ Fam.7.31  DCXCIV (Fam. VII, 31) TO MANIUS CURIUS (AT PATRAE) ROME (FEBRUARY) I had no difficulty in gathering from your letter, what I have always been anxious for, that I am very highly valued by you, and that you are fully aware how dear you are to me. As, then, we are both convinced of that, it remains for us to enter upon a rivalry of good offices. In that contest I shall be equally content to surpass you or to be surpassed by you. I am not displeased to find that there was no need for my letter being handed to Acilius. I gather from your letter that you had no great occasion for the services of Sulpicius, because your affairs had been so much reduced in magnitude, that they had "neither head nor feet." I could wish that they had "feet," that you might come back to Rome some day. For you see that the old fountain of humour has run dry, so that by this time our poet Pomponius might say with good reason: "We only guard — a dwindling band — The ancient fame of Attic land." So he is your successor, I his. Come, therefore, I beg, lest the seed for the harvest of wit perish along with the republic.

§ Fam.12.21  DCXCV (Fam. XII, 21) TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME: MY friend Gaius Anicius, a man possessed of every sort of accomplishment, has on urgent private affairs received a free legation to go to Africa. I should be glad if you would render him every kind of assistance and would take pains to enable him to settle his business as satisfactorily as possible. Especially — what is most valuable in his eyes — I request you to have an eye to his dignity. And I ask that of you, because I myself when in a province was accustomed without being asked to be careful to assign lictors to all senators. That is a compliment which I had myself received, and I knew that it was habitually done by the most distinguished men. Therefore, my dear Cornificius, pray do this, and in all other respects, if you love me, consult for his dignity and his property. You will exceedingly oblige me by doing so. Take pains to keep well.

§ Fam.6.15  DCXCVI (Fam. VI, 15) TO L. MINUCIUS BASILUS (?ON THE CAPITOL) ROME (15 MARCH, B.C. 44) I congratulate you! For myself I am rejoiced! I love you: I watch over your interests: I desire to be loved by you and to be informed of how you are, and what is being done.

§ Fam.6.1  DCXCVII (Fam. VI, 1) DECIMUS BRUTUS TO M. BRUTUS AND C. CASSIUS (ON THE CAPITOL) ROME, 17 MARCH: I write to let you know our position. Yesterday evening Hirtius called on me, and told me about the disposition of Antony. It is of course as bad and untrustworthy as possible. For he said that he could not give me my province, and did not think that it was safe for any of us to remain in Rome, considering the extreme irritation of the soldiery and the common people. I think you are aware that both these allegations are false, and that the truth is what Hirtius affirmed, namely, that Antony is afraid that, if we got even a moderate assistance in support of our position, there would be no part left for them to play in the state. Being in these straits I determined to demand a free legation for myself and the rest of us, in order to obtain a decent excuse for leaving the City. He promised that he would procure it, but I don't feel sure that he will do so; for people are so unreasonable and the set against us is so strong. Even if they granted our request, I yet think that before long we should be declared public enemies and forbidden water and fire. What, then, you say, "is your advice?" We must yield to fortune: we must quit Italy I think, and retire to Rhodes or some place or other in the world. If any improvement occurs we will return to Rome. If things go only fairly well we will live in exile; if the worst comes to the worst, we will have recourse to extreme measures in our support. Perhaps it will here occur to one of you — why should we wait for the worst, rather than make some attempt at once? Because we have no one to depend upon for safety except Sextus Pompeius and Caecilius Bassus, who I think are likely to be still more determined when they hear the news about Caesar. It will be soon enough for us to join them when we know their strength. If you wish me to give any undertaking for Cassius and yourself, I will give it: for Hirtius demands that I should do so. I beg you to answer this letter as promptly as possible — for I have no doubt that Hirtius will inform me on these points before ten o'clock — and tell me where we can meet and to what place you wish me to come. After my last Conversation with Hirtius I decided to ask that we should be allowed to remain at Rome under the protection of a state guard. I don't think they will concede that; for we shall be casting a grave slur upon them. However, I thought I must not omit to make any demand which I considered equitable.

§ Fam.6.16  DCXCVIII (Fam. VI, 16) AULUS POMPEIUS BITHYNICUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) SICILY (MARCH) If I had not personally many valid causes for friendship with you, I would have referred to the origin of that friendship which began with our fathers. But that is, I think, only to be done by those who have not kept up a paternal friendship by any good offices themselves. I shall be content therefore with our own personal friendship, in reliance on which I beg you to protect me in my absence, with the assurance that no kindness on your part will ever fade from my mind. Good-bye.

§ Fam.15.20  DCXCIX (Fam. XV, 20) TO GAIUS TREBONIUS (ON HIS WAY TO ASIA) (ROME OR TUSCULUM (?), APRIL) My orator — for that is the title I have given it — I have handed to your Sabine servant. His nationality made me think that he was a proper person to whom to give it: unless he too has availed himself of the licence of candidates and has suddenly adopted this surname. However, the modesty of his look and the gravity of his conversation seemed to me to smack somewhat of Cures. But enough about Sabinus. Since at your departure, my dear Trebonius, while wishing to aid me to bear with greater patience my warm regret for your absence, you only poured a good deal of oil on the fire of my love for you, pray bombard me with frequent letters on the understanding that I will do the same to you. There are, however, two reasons why you should be more regular in performing that service than myself: First, that in old days those remaining at Rome were accustomed to write on public affairs to their friends in the provinces; whereas you are now bound to write to us: for the Republic is there. Secondly, because I have the opportunity of serving you during your absence in other ways, while I do not see how you can do that for me except by letters. But you must write on other matters to me afterwards; at present the first thing I desire to know is what sort of journey you are having; where you have seen our friend Brutus, how long you have been together. Presently, when you have got farther on your way, you must write to me about military affairs, and the whole business, that I may know how we stand. I shall not look upon any information as certain except what I get from your letters. Take care of your health, and preserve your old supreme affection for me.

§ Fam.6.17  DCCVIII (Fam. VI, 17) TO AULUS POMPEIUS BITHYNICUS (IN SICILY) CAMPANIA (APRIL) For every reason I am anxious for the constitution to be at length put on a sound footing; but, believe me, an additional motive for desiring it still more is supplied me by the promise conveyed in your letter. You say in it that, if that is ever the case, you will pass your time in my society. Such a wish on your part is highly gratifying to me, and is entirely in accord with our close friendship and with the opinion your illustrious father entertained of me. For believe me when I say that others, who have had at times or still have the opportunity, may be more closely united to you by the amount of their services than I am, but that in friendship no one can be so. Accordingly, I am gratified both by your recollection of our intimacy and by your wish to increase it.

§ Fam.12.1  DCCXX (Fam. XII, 1) TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS (AT ANTIUM) POMPEII, 3 MAY.: Believe me, Cassius, I never cease thinking about you and our dear Brutus, that is, about the entire Republic, all hope for which depends on you two and Decimus Brutus. That hope indeed I now myself feel to be improved owing to the very splendid administration of my dear Dolabella. For that mischief in the city was gradually extending and becoming day by day so confirmed, that I felt uneasy both for the city and the peace in it. But that mutiny has now been put down in such a way that I think we shall be secured for all time, at any rate from that most degrading of dangers. Things still remaining to be done are both important and numerous; but they all rest with you three. However, let me expound each in its turn. Well then, as far as we have gone as yet, we seem not to have been freed from a tyranny — only from a tyrant: for though the tyrant has been killed, we obey his every nod. And not only so, but measures which he himself, had he been alive, would not have taken, we allow to pass on the plea that they were meditated by him. And to this indeed I see no limit: decrees are fastened up; immunities are granted; immense sums of money are squandered; exiles are being recalled; forged decrees of the senate are being entered in the aerarium. Surely then nothing has been accomplished except to dispel the indignation at our slavery and the resentment against an unprincipled man: the Republic still lies involved in the confusions into which he brought it. These are all questions demanding your solution; and you must not think that the Republic has had all it can claim from you three. It has had indeed more than it ever occurred to me to desire, but it is not content yet. Its demands are great in proportion to the greatness of your spirits and of your services. Up to the present it has avenged its injuries by the death of the tyrant through your hands: nothing more. Which of its dignities has it recovered? Is it that it now obeys the man in his grave whom it could not endure in his life-time? Do we support the rough drafts of a man, whose laws we ought to have torn down from the walls? "But" — you will say — "we so decreed in the senate." Yes, we did so as a concession to the exigencies of the time, which always been of decisive importance in politics. But they are abusing our concession without moderation or gratitude. However, of this and much else before long when we meet. Meanwhile, I would have you feel fully persuaded that, both for the sake of the Republic — always the object of my greatest devotion — and for the sake of our mutual affection, your position in the state is the object of the greatest importance in my eyes. Take great care of your health.

§ Fam.12.16  DCCXXXIII (Fam. XII, 16) GAIUS TREBONIUS TO CICERO ATHENS, 25 MAY: IF you are well, I am glad. I arrived at Athens on the 22nd of May, and there, as I was very anxious to do, I saw your son devoting himself to the best kinds of learning, and enjoying an excellent reputation for steadiness. How much pleasure that gave me you can imagine without a word from me: for you are not ignorant of my high esteem for you, and how much our very old friendship and very sincere affection make me rejoice in everything good that happens to you, however small, to say nothing of such a great blessing as this. Do not imagine, my dear Cicero, that I send you this report merely to please you. Nothing could be more popular with everybody at Athens than your young man-indeed I should call him ours, for I can have no interest disconnected with yourself. Nor could there be greater devotion than his to the studies which you love above everything, that is, to the most excellent. Accordingly, as I can do with sincerity, I am delighted to congratulate you — and myself quite as much — that we have in him, whom we should be obliged to love in any case, whatever his conduct, one whom we can love with pleasure as well. In the course of conversation he remarked to me that he would like to visit Asia, and was not only invited but pressed by me to do so if possible while I was governing the province. You ought to have no doubt that in affection and love I shall be a father to him in your place. Another thing I shall take care of is that Cratippus accompanies him, that you may not imagine him in Asia as taking a complete holiday from the studies to which he is inspired by your admonitions. For though I see that he is fully prepared, and has already taken a great stride in that direction, I will not omit my exhortations, to induce him to make farther progress every day by learning and keeping himself in practice. What you at home are doing in politics I am at the moment of despatching this quite ignorant. I hear rumours of certain revolutionary proceedings: but I hope they are false, that we may at length have the enjoyment of liberty and peace-two things that up to now have really never fallen to my lot. However, as I got a brief time of repose during my voyage, I have composed a trifle to send you, as I had designed to do. I have included in it a bon mot of yours which implied a high compliment to myself, and have added a footnote ascribing it to you. In these poor verses, if I seem to you in certain passages to be un peu libre, the abominable character of the man against whom I am too freely inveighing will plead my excuse. You will also pardon my passion, which is no more than is right against people of that kind, both as men and as citizens. Again, why should Lucilius have been allowed to claim this amount of liberty any more than ourselves? For even if his wrath against the objects of his attack was as keen as ours, those objects themselves were certainly not more deserving of being attacked with all that freedom of speech. In return I claim your promise of being introduced in one of your dialogues at the earliest opportunity. For I feel certain that, if you write anything about Caesar's death, you will not allow me to sustain the least distinguished part either in actual deed or in the expression of your affection. Good-bye. I commend my mother and family to your care. Athens, 25 May.

§ Fam.11.2  DCCXXXVII (Fam. XI, 2) BRUTUS AND CASSIUS TO M. ANTONIUS (AT ROME) LANUVIUM (LATE IN MAY) Brutus and Cassius, praetors, to M. Antonius, consul. If we had not been convinced of your honour and kind feeling to ourselves, we should not have written this letter to you. And this being the state of your mind, you will, we feel sure, receive it with all possible favour. Our correspondents inform us that a crowd of veterans has already collected at Rome, and that there will be a much greater one there by the 1st of June. If we entertained any doubt or fear of you, we should be untrue to ourselves. But since we have put ourselves in your hands, and under your advice have dismissed our friends from the country towns, and done so by a circular letter as well as by an edict, we have a claim to be admitted to your confidence, especially in a matter which touches ourselves. Wherefore we beg you to let us know what your feeling towards us is: whether you think that we shall be safe in the midst of such a crowd of veteran soldiers, who, we hear, even think of replacing the altar. That is a thing which we think that hardly anyone can wish or approve, who desires our safety and honour. The result shows clearly that our aim from the first was peace, and that we have had no other object than the liberty of all. No one can beguile us except yourself, and that is a course of conduct quite alien to your virtue and honour. But no one else has the means of deceiving us: for it is you alone that we have trusted and intend to trust. Our friends are disturbed by a very great alarm on our account. For though they have every confidence in your good faith, they yet cannot help reflecting that the crowd of veteran soldiers can be more easily moved by others in any particular direction, than they can be held back by you. We ask you to write back and explain everything. For the suggestion that notice has been given to the veterans to appear, because you intended to bring in a law about their pensions in June, is wholly inadequate and meaningless. For whom do you think likely to hinder it, since in regard to ourselves we have made up our minds to do nothing whatever? We ought not to be thought by anyone too greedy of life, since nothing can happen to us without general disaster and confusion.

§ Fam.16.23  DCCLI (Fam. XVI, 23) TO TIRO (AT ROME) TUSCULUM (21 JUNE) WELL, settle about the tax-return if you can: though this particular money is not properly liable to such a return. However — no matter! Balbus writes to say that he has such a violent catarrh that he has lost his voice. As to Antonius and his law-it's all one. Let them only leave me my country life. I have written to Bithynicus. I must leave you to make your own reflexions on Servilius — for you rather want to live to be an old man. As for me, our dear Atticus, having once noticed that I was in a panic, thinks that it is always so with me, and does not see with what a panoply of philosophy I am now armed. In fact he creates alarm by being frightened himself. After all I really do wish to keep up my friendship with Antony, which has now lasted a long time without a quarrel, and I will write to him, but not till I have seen you. Yet I don't want to call you off from looking after your bond-every man for himself! I am expecting Lepta ...tomorrow. To qualify the bitter rue of his talk I shall want the sweet marjoram of yours. Good-bye.

§ Fam.7.21  DCCLVII (Fam. VII, 21) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (AT ROME) (TUSCULUM, JUNE) I have explained Silius's case to you. He has since been to see me. When I told him that in your opinion we might safely make that stipulation, "In case the praetor Q. Caepio, in accordance with his edict, has granted me possession of Turpilia's estate," he remarked, that Servius's doctrine was that a will made by a party who had not the legal power of making one was no will, and Ofilius concurred. He said he had had no talk with you, and asked me to commend his cause to your care. There is no better man, my dear Testa, nor anyone more attached to me than Publius Silius, yourself however excepted. You will therefore very much oblige me if you will go to him and volunteer your services: and if you love me, do so as soon as possible. I beg you warmly and repeatedly to do this. xvi. 7. He didn't wish it to be thought that he was going to Greece to attend the Olympic games.

§ Fam.7.22  DCCLVIII (Fam. VII, 22) TO C. TREBATIUS TESTA (AT ROME) (?TUSCULUM, JUNE) YOU jeered at me yesterday amidst our cups, for having said that it was a disputed point whether an heir could lawfully prosecute on an embezzlement which had been committed before he became the owner. Accordingly, though I returned home full of wine and late in the evening, I marked the section in which that question is treated and caused it to be copied out and sent to you. I wanted to convince you that the doctrine which you said was held by no one was maintained by Sextus Aelius, Manius Manilius, Marcus Brutus. Nevertheless, I concur with Scaevola and Testa.

§ Fam.11.29  DCCLIX (Fam. XI, 29) TO GAIUS OPPIUS (AT ROME) (ANAGNIA, JULY) WHEN I was hesitating — as my friend Atticus knows-about the entire idea of my journey, because many considerations on both sides kept occurring to my mind, your judgment and advice had great weight in clearing away all feeling of hesitation: for not only did your letter express your opinion frankly, but Atticus also conveyed to me what you had said by word of mouth. It has ever been my opinion that nothing could exceed your wisdom in conceiving or your honesty in imparting advice. I had a supreme instance of this when I wrote to consult you at the beginning of the civil war as to what you thought I ought to do — go to Pompey, or stay in Italy. You advised me to consider what was due to my position. That told me plainly what your opinion was; and I admired your honesty and conscientiousness in giving advice. For though you thought that your dearest friend would wish it to be otherwise, your duty to me was of superior importance in your eyes to his wishes. For my part, even before that time I was attached to you, and always felt that you were attached to me. And when I was abroad and in the midst of great dangers, I remember that both I myself in my absence and my family who were at home enjoyed your attentions and protection. Again, after my return I can call all who usually observe such things to witness on what intimate terms you have been with me, and what feelings I have both entertained and avowed in regard to you. But the weightiest expression of your judgment as to my honour and consistency was given by you when, after Caesar's death, you devoted yourself heart and soul to my friendship. If I fail to justify that judgment by displaying the warmest affection for you and serving you in every possible way, I shall regard myself as a monster of ingratitude. Pray, my dear Oppius, maintain your love for me — though, after all, I say this more because it is usual to say it, than from an idea that you need to be reminded — and continue to protect all my interests. As to what they are I have charged Atticus to enlighten you. As soon as I have secured a little leisure you may expect a longer letter from me. Take good care to keep well; you cannot oblige me more than by doing that.

§ Fam.7.20  DCCLXXI (Fam. VII, 20) TO GAIUS TREBATIUS (AT ROME) VELIA, 20 JULY: Velia seemed to me the more charming because I perceived that you were popular there. But why name you, who are a universal favourite? Even your friend Rufio, upon my word, was as much in request as though he had been one of us. But I don't blame you for having taken him away to superintend your building operations; for although Velia is as valuable as the Lupercal, yet I would rather be where you are than own all your property here. If you will listen to me, as you usually do, you will keep this paternal estate — for the Velians seemed a little afraid that you wouldn't — and will not abandon that noble stream, the Hales, nor desert the Papirian mansion — though that other has a famous lotus which attracts even foreign visitors, but which would after all much improve your view if it were cut down. But, above all, it seems a most desirable thing, especially in such times as these, to have as a refuge in the first place a town whose citizens are attached to you, and in the second place a house and lands of your own, and that in a retired, healthy, and picturesque spot. And this, my dear Trebatius, is to my interest also, I think. But keep well and see to my affairs, and expect me home D.5. before the winter. I carried off from Sextus Fadius, Nico's pupil, the essay of Nico's "On Over-eating." What a pleasant doctor! And what a ready scholar am I in such a school as that! But our friend Bassus kept me in the dark about that book: not so you, it seems. The wind is rising. Take care of yourself.

§ Fam.7.19  DCCLXXIII (Fam. VII, 19) TO GAIUS TREBATIUS (AT ROME) RHEGIUM, 28 JULY: SEE how greatly I value you: and it is no more than your due, for I do not surpass you in affection. However, what I almost refused, or at any rate did not give you, when you were with me, I could not make up my mind to continue to owe you now that you are away. Accordingly, no sooner had I begun my voyage from Velia than I set to work to translate Aristotle's Topica, having been reminded by the sight of a city so warmly attached to you. I send you this book from Rhegium written in as clear a style as the subject admitted. But if certain parts appear to you to be somewhat obscure, you must reflect that no art can be learnt out of books without some one to explain it and without some practical exercise in it. You will not have to go far for an instance. Can the art of you jurisconsults be learnt out of books? Though there are a great number of them, they yet require a teacher and actual practice. However, if you read this with attention and repeatedly, you will be able to grasp the whole subject by yourself — at least so far as to understand it. But that such loci communes should at once occur to your own mind upon any question being proposed, you can only secure by practice. To this, indeed, I shall keep you, if I get home safe and find things safe at Rome. 28 July, Rhegium.

§ 44.774  DCCLXXIV (Att. XVI, 16b) TO GNAEUS MUNATIUS PLANCUS (AT ROME) JULY: I have already written to request you that the cause of the Buthrotians having received the approval of the consuls, to whom authority had been given both by a law and a senatorial decree, "that they should investigate, determine, and decide on Caesar's acta," you would support that decision and relieve both our friend Atticus — whom I know you to be anxious to serve — and myself, who am no less anxious than he, from all trouble. For as the whole business has been completed with much care and much labour, it now rests with you that we should be able to make as early an end as possible to our anxiety. Although I am well aware that a man of your wisdom must see that, if the decrees of the consuls which have been delivered as to Caesar's acta are not observed, a most chaotic state of things will be the result. The fact is that though many of Caesar's arrangements — as was inevitable in the multitude of his occupations — are not now thought good, I am yet accustomed to sup-port them with the utmost vigour for the sake of peace and quietness. I think you ought by all means to do the same, though this letter is not meant to persuade but to prefer a request. Therefore, my dear Plancus, I beg and beseech you with an earnestness and a heartiness beyond which, upon my honour, I cannot plead any cause, to carry on, treat, and settle this business in such a way that what we have obtained from the consuls without any hesitation, owing to their great kindness and the justice of our cause, you will not only acquiesce, but even rejoice, in our having secured. What your disposition towards Atticus is you have often shown him to his face, as well as myself. If you do this you will have put me — always closely allied to you by personal feeling and inherited friendship-under the greatest possible obligation. I ask you earnestly and repeatedly to do so.

§ 44.775  DCCLXXV (Att. XVI, 16c) TO GAIUS CAPITO (IN EPIRUS) (JULY) I never thought that I should have to come to you as a suppliant. But, by heaven, I am not sorry that an opportunity has been given me to test your affection. You know how highly I value Atticus. Pray do me this favour also: forget for my sake that he wished support given to his own friend who happened to be an opponent of yours, when that person's reputation was at stake. That you should grant this pardon is demanded by your own sense of fairness; for every man is bound to support his own friends. In the next place, if you love me — I put Atticus out of the question — let this be a concession made entirely to your Cicero your value for whom you constantly avow, in order that I may now unmistakably understand, what I have always thought, that I am deeply loved by you. By a decree — which I in company of many men of the highest rank countersigned-Caesar freed the Buthrotians, and indicated to us that, since the assignees of land had crossed the sea, he would send a despatch stating into what district they were to be taken. After that, as chance would have it, he met with a sudden death. Then, as you know — for you were present when the consuls were bound by a sena tonal decree to decide on Caesar's acta — the business was deferred by them to the 1st of June. To the decree of the senate there was added a law passed on the 2nd of June, which gave the consuls power to decide on "all things appointed, decreed, done by Caesar." The case of the Buthrotians was brought before the consuls. The decree of Caesar was read and many other minutes of Caesar's were also produced. The consuls by the advice of their assessors pronounced judgment in favour of the Buthrotians. They commissioned Plancus. Now, my dear Capito — as I know how much influence you always exercise over those with whom you are associated, especially over a man of the extreme good nature and kindness of Plancus — use every exertion, strain every nerve, or rather every power of fascination, to secure that Plancus, who, I hope, is likely to be very good to us, should become still better by your means. In any case the facts are of such a nature, in my opinion, that without anyone's influence Plancus, considering his character and practical wisdom, is himself not likely to hesitate in sup-porting a decision of the consuls, to whom by a law as well as a senatorial decree the inquiry into and decision of the matter has been committed. More especially so as — if this kind of judicial investigation is discredited — the acta of Caesar seem likely to be called in question, the maintenance of which is desired not only by those whose personal interests are concerned, but for the sake of peace by those also who do not approve of them. This being the case, it is yet to our interest that Plancus should act with a ready and obliging disposition. And he will certainly do so, if you display that fortiter in re of which I have had frequent examples, and that suaviter in modo in which no one is your equal. I earnestly beg you to do so.

§ 44.776  DCCLXXVI (Att. XVI, 16d) TO GAIUS CUPIENNIUS (JULY) I valued your father very highly, and he also showed me remarkable attention and affection, nor, by heaven, had I ever any doubt of your affection for me. For my part I have never ceased feeling it for you. Therefore I beg you with more than common earnestness to help in relieving the state of Buthrotum; and take pains to induce our friend Plancus at the earliest opportunity to ratify and approve the decree of the consuls which they made in favour of the Buthrotians, since they had the power of settling the matter both by a law and a senatorial decree. I beg you, my dear Cupiennius, earnestly and repeatedly to do so.

§ 44.777  DCCLXXVII (Att. XVI, 16e) TO GNAEUS MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN EPIRUS) (JULY) CICERO to Plancus, praetor-designate. Pardon me for writing to you frequently on the same subject, in spite of having already written on it with the greatest minuteness. I do not do so, my dear Plancus, from distrust of your right feeling or of our friendship. The reason is the great amount of property of our friend Atticus — and now of his credit also — involved in his being proved able to maintain a measure ratified by Caesar, witnessed and countersigned by ourselves as being present at the execution of Caesar's decrees and answers to petitions. And I appeal especially to you, because the whole control over that business is in your hands, I don't say to approve, but to approve with zeal and cheerfulness of what the consuls have decreed in virtue of Caesar's decrees and promises. It is impossible for me to be more grateful for anything than I shall be for that. But although I hope that by the time you receive this letter what I asked of you in my previous letter will have been granted, yet I will not make an end of asking until I have received intelligence of your having actually done what I am looking forward to with strong hope. Further, I feel confident of being able to employ a different style of letter, and to thank you for an instance of your extreme kindness. If that comes to pass I would have you think that it is not so much Atticus — whose interests at stake are very large — as myself, who am equally anxious, that will be under an obligation to you.

§ 44.778  DCCLXXVIII (Att. XVI, 16f) TO GAIUS CAPITO (IN EPIRUS) (JULY) I do not doubt that you are wondering and even feeling annoyed at my frequently pressing you on the same topic. Atticus — my most intimate friend and in every respect most closely united with me — has a very great interest at I know how ready you are to serve your friends, and bow ready your friends are to serve you. I know the kindness of your heart. I know how charming you are to your friends. Now no one can help us in this business more than you. The thing itself also is as certain as that ought to be which the consuls have decided on the advice of their assessors, after investigating it on the authority of a law and a decree of the senate. Still we regard everything as depending on the liberality of your friend Plancus: whom indeed I consider certain to confirm a consular decision, both as a private duty and in loyalty to the constitution, and also to do so cheerfully for my sake. Give us your assistance, therefore, my dear Capito: I earnestly and repeatedly beg you to do so.

§ Fam.11.3  DCCLXXIX (Fam. XI, 3) M. BRUTUS AND C. CASSIUS TO M. ANTONIUS THE CONSUL NAPLES, 4 AUGUST If you are well, we are glad. We have perused a letter from you very closely corresponding to your edict-insulting, threatening, and not at all such as should have been addressed to us by you. We have not, Antonius, used any words of insult to you, nor did we suppose that you would be surprised if as praetors and men of such rank we had demanded in an edict something of a consul. But if you feel indignation at our having ventured to do so, at least allow us to feel aggrieved that even this much is refused by you to a Brutus and a Cassius. For as to the holding of levies and demanding money contributions, tampering with armies and sending couriers across sea — of which you say that you have not complained — we of course believe that your action has been dictated by the best motives. Nevertheless, we do not acknowledge any one of these allegations, and we feel surprised that, after restraining your tongue on these matters, you have not been able to refrain from taunting us in your anger with the death of Caesar. Rather consider yourself how intolerable it is that praetors are not allowed for the sake of peace and liberty to announce in an edict that they waive their rights, without the consul threatening them with armed violence. By relying on arms you cannot daunt us: for it is neither right nor fitting for us to allow our courage to be overborne by any danger, nor ought Antonius to expect to tyrannize over those by whose action he is a free man. If other considerations impelled us to wish for a civil war, your letter would not have had any effect upon the question: for words of menace have no weight with free men. But you know full well that we cannot be driven in any direction, and perhaps you use menaces in that matter to give what is the result of our deliberate judgment the appearance of fear. Our feeling is that, while we desire you to have a great and honourable position in a free state, and do not challenge you to any quarrel, we yet value our liberty higher than your friendship. Consider again and again what you are taking upon yourself, what you are capable of maintaining, and be careful to consider not how long Caesar lived, but how long he reigned. We pray the gods that your designs may be for the safety of the Republic; if not, we hope that they may damage yourself as little as is consistent with its safety and honour. 4 August.

§ Fam.11.27  DCCLXXXI (Fam. XI, 27) TO C. MATIUS (AT ROME) TUSCULUM (END OF AUGUST) I have not yet been able to make up my mind whether Trebatius — kind man and devoted friend of us both-brought me more pain or pleasure. The fact is that I having reached Tusculum in the evening, early next day he called on me: though he was not fully recovered. I scolded him for not being sufficiently considerate of his weak health: but he said that nothing had been more wearisome to him than waiting to see me. "Nothing fresh happened, has there?" said I. Then he told me of your grievance. But before I answer it I will put before you a few facts. As far back as I can remember I have no older friend than your-self. But after all the length of a friendship is something in which many others share. Not so warmth of affection. I became attached to you the first day I knew you, and formed the opinion that you were attached to me. After that your absence — which was a very prolonged one — my own official career, and the different line we took in life did not allow our inclinations to be cemented by a constant intercourse. Nevertheless, I had proof of your affection for me many years before the civil war, when Caesar was in Gaul. For you secured what you were strongly of opinion was to my advantage and not without advantage to Caesar himself — that the latter should like me, pay me attention, and rate me among his friends. I pass over instances in those times of words, letters, and various communications of the most friendly character passing between us. For a more dangerous crisis followed: and at the beginning of the civil war, when you were on your way to Brundisium to join Caesar, you came to call on me at Formiae. How much that implies in itself, to begin with, especially at such a crisis! And in the next place, do you suppose that I have forgotten your advice, conversation, and kindly interest? And in these I remember that Trebatius took part. Nor, again, have I for gotten the letter you sent me after you had met Caesar in the district, if I remember rightly, of Trebula. Then followed the period in which whether you call it shame or duty or fortune compelled me to go abroad to join Pompey. What service or zeal was wanting on your part, either towards myself when away from town, or my family, who were still there? Whom did all my family regard as more warmly attached either to me or to themselves? I came to Brundisium: do you suppose that I have forgotten with what speed you flew to me from Tarentum, as soon as you heard of it? Or, of how patiently you sat by my side, talked to me, and strengthened my courage, which had been broken by the dread of the universal ruin? At length our residence at Rome began: could anything be more intimate than we were? In questions of the first importance I consulted you as to my attitude towards Caesar, and in other matters availed myself of your good offices. Setting Caesar aside, whom else but me did you so far distinguish as to visit constantly at home, where you often spent many hours in the most delightful conversation? And it was then too, if you remember, that you instigated me to write these philosophical works. After Caesar's return, was there any object dearer to you than that I should be on the terms of closest friendship with him? And this you had accomplished. To what end, therefore, is this preamble which has run to greater length than I anticipated? Why, to explain my surprise that you, who were bound to have known all this, should have believed me capable of having done anything incompatible with our friendship. For besides these facts, which are well attested and as clear as the day, I could mention many others of a more secret nature, such as I can hardly express in words. Everything about you gives me pleasure: but above all your surpassing fidelity in friendship, the prudence, trustworthiness and consistency of your character, as well as the charm of your manners, the cultivation of your intellect, and your knowledge of literature. This being understood, I return to your statement of grievance. That you voted for that law I at first refused to believe. In the next place, if I had believed it, I should never have believed that you did so without some sound reason. Your rank makes it inevitable that whatever you do should be noticed: while the ill-nature of the world causes certain things to be represented in a harsher light than your actions have really warranted. If you never hear such observations I don't know what to say. For my part, whenever I hear them I defend you, as I know that I am always defended by you against my detractors. Now my line of defence is twofold. There are some statements which I meet with a blank denial, as about that very vote of yours. Others I defend on the ground of the loyalty and kindness of your motives, as in regard to the superintendence of the games. But it does not escape a mind so highly cultivated as yours that, if Caesar was a tyrant — as I think he was-two opposite theories are capable of being maintained in regard to your services. One is mine — when I hold that your loyalty and kindness are to be commended for showing affection to a friend, even after his death. The opposite theory, advanced by some, is that the liberty of our country is to be preferred to the life of a friend. From such discussions as these I only wish that the arguments I have advanced had come to your ears! Two other points, which above everything else redound to you reputation, no one could put oftener and with more satisfaction than I do: that your voice was the strongest both against beginning the civil war, and for moderation in victory. And in this I have never found anyone who did not agree with me. Therefore I am grateful to our friend Trebatius for giving me an excuse for writing this letter. And if you do not believe in it, you will thereby condemn me as wanting in duty and good feeling: than which nothing can be more discreditable to me or more foreign to your own character.

§ Fam.11.28  DCCLXXXII (Fam. XI, 28) C. MATIUS TO CICERO (AT TUSCULUM) ROME (AUGUST) Your letter gave me great pleasure by convincing me that your opinion of me was what I had hoped and wished that it should be. And although I had no doubt about that, yet, as I valued it very highly, I was anxious that it should remain intact. I was, moreover, conscious in my own mind of having done nothing calculated to wound the feelings of any good man. Therefore I was all the less inclined to believe that a man of your many splendid qualities could be induced to adopt any opinion inconsiderately, especially as my good feeling towards you had always been, and still was, heartfelt and uninterrupted. As then I know this to be as I wished it to be, I will now answer the charges, which — as was natural from your unparalleled kindness and our friendship-you have often rebutted in my behalf. Now I am well acquainted with the allegations made against me since Caesar's death. People blame me for showing grief at the death of a dear friend, and expressing my indignation that the man whom I loved had been killed. For they say that country should be preferred to friendship, as though they had actually proved that his death has been beneficial to the Republic. Well, I will speak frankly. I confess that I have not attained to that height of philosophy. For in the political controversy it was not Caesar that I followed, but it was a friend whom — though disapproving of what was being done — I yet refused to desert. Nor did I ever approve of a civil war, nor of the motive of the quarrel, which in fact I strove my utmost to have nipped in the bud. Accordingly, when my friend was victorious I was not fascinated by the charm either of promotion or of money-rewards upon which others, though less influential with him than I was, seized with such intemperate avidity. In fact, even my own personal property was curtailed by the law of Caesar, thanks to which most of those who now exult in Caesar's death maintained their position in the state. I was as anxious that conquered citizens should be spared as I was for my own safety. Wishing therefore the preservation of all, could I fail to be indignant that the man by whose means that preservation had been secured had perished? Especially when the very same men had caused both the feeling against him. and the death which befell him. "Well then," say they, "you are assailed for venturing to show your disapprobation of our deed." What unheard — of tyranny! One party are to boast of a crime, others are not to be allowed even to grieve at it with impunity! Why, even slaves have always been free to fear, to rejoice, and to grieve at their own will rather than at the behest of another-emotions of which, to judge from the frequent remarks of your champions of liberty, they are now endeavouring to deprive us by force. But they are throwing away their labour. I shall never be deterred from duty and humanity by the threats of any danger. For I have convinced myself that an honourable death is never to be shunned, is often even to be sought. But why are they angry with me for wishing them to repent of what they have do e? For I desire Caesar's death to be regretted by all. 'But," say they, "I ought as a citizen to desire the safety of the Republic." If my past life and future hopes do not prove me — without my saying a word — to desire that, I do not expect to convince them by anything I can say. Therefore I ask you with more than usual earnestness to regard facts as more convincing than words; and if you think it good for the world that right should prevail, to believe that I can have nothing in common with criminals. The principles which I maintained as a young man, when I might have had some excuse for going wrong, am I now that my life is drawing to its close entirely to change and with my own lips to give the lie to my whole career? I will not do so! Yet I will not act in a way to cause offence farther than by avowing my grief at the hard fate of one so deeply loved, and a man of such extraordinary distinction. But if I were otherwise disposed I would never deny what I was doing, lest I should get the reputation of being at once unscrupulous in committing crime, and timid and false in disavowing it. But, say they, "I superintended the games given by the young Caesar in honour of Caesar's victory." That is a matter of private obligation with no constitutional significance. Yet, after all, a service which I was bound to render to the memory of a dear friend even after his death, I could not refuse to the request of a young man of very great promise and in the highest degree worthy of Caesar. I have also frequently been to the house of the consul Antonius to pay my respects. Yes, and those who now regard me as unpatriotic you will find going there in crowds to prefer some petition or to pocket some bounty. But what insolence is this that, whereas Caesar never interfered with my being intimate with whom I chose, even with those whom he personally disliked, these men who have torn my friend from me should now endeavour by their captious remarks to prevent my loving whom I choose? But I have no fear either of the regularity of my life not being sufficient to protect me hereafter, or of those very men who hate me for my constancy to Caesar not preferring to have friends like me rather than like themselves. For myself, if I get what I like, I shall spend the remainder of my life in retirement at Rhodes: but if some accident intervenes, though I am at Rome I shall always desire the right to prevail. I am very much obliged to our friend Trebatius, for having shown me your true-hearted and affectionate feeling towards myself, and for having given me additional reasons for being still more bound to cultivate and respect a man for whom I have always felt a spontaneous affection. Good-bye, and do not cease to love me.

§ Fam.16.21  DCCLXXXIII (Fam. XVI, 21) M. CICERO (THE YOUNGER) TO TIRO ATHENS (AUGUST) After I had been anxiously expecting letter-carriers day after day, at length they arrived forty-six days after they left you. Their arrival was most welcome to me: for while I took the greatest possible pleasure in the letter of the kindest and most beloved of fathers, still your most delightful letter put a finishing stroke to my joy. So I no longer repent of having suspended writing for a time, but am rather rejoiced at it; for I have reaped a great reward in your kindness from my pen having been silent. I am therefore exceedingly glad that you have unhesitatingly accepted my excuse. I am sure, dearest Tiro, that the reports about me which reach you answer your best wishes and hopes. I will make them good, and will do my best that this belief in me, which day by day becomes more and more en evidence, shall be doubled. Wherefore you may with confidence and assurance fulfil your promise of being the trumpeter of my reputation. For the errors of my youth have caused me so much remorse and suffering, that not only does my heart shrink from what I did, my very ears abhor the mention of it. And of this anguish and sorrow I know and am assured that you have taken your share. And I don't wonder at it! for while you wished me all success for my sake, you did so also for your own; for I have ever meant you to be my partner in all my good fortunes. Since, therefore, you have suffered sorrow through me, I will now take care that through me your joy shall be doubled. Let me assure you that my very close attachment to Cratippus is that of a son rather than a pupil: for though I enjoy his lectures, I am also specially charmed with his delightful manners. I spend whole days with him, and often part of the night: for I induce him to dine with me as often as possible. This intimacy having been established, he often drops in upon us unexpectedly while we are at dinner, and laying aside the stiff airs of a philosopher joins in our jests with the greatest possible freedom. He is such a man — so delightful, so distinguished — that you should take pains to make his acquaintance at the earliest possible opportunity. I need hardly mention Bruttius, whom I never allow to leave my, side. He is a man of a strict and moral life, as well as being the most delightful company. For in him fun is not divorced from literature and the daily philosophical inquiries which we make in common. I have hired a residence next door to him, and as far as I can with my poor pittance I subsidize his narrow means. Farthermore, I have begun practising declamation in Greek with Cassius; in Latin I like having my practice with Bruttius. My intimate friends and daily company are those whom Cratippus brought with him from Mitylene — good scholars, of whom he has the highest opinion. I also see a great deal of Epicrates, the leading man at Athens, and Leonides, and other men of that sort. So now you know how I am going on. You remark in your letter on the character of Gorgias. The fact is, I found him very useful in my daily practice of declamation; but I subordinated everything to obeying my father's injunctions, for he had written ordering me to give him up at once. I wouldn't shilly-shally about the business, for fear my making a fuss should cause my father to harbour some suspicion. Moreover, it occurred to me that it would be offensive for me to express an opinion on a decision of my father's. However, your interest and advice are welcome and acceptable. Your apology for lack of time I quite accept; for I know how busy you always are. I air very glad that you have bought an estate, and you have my best wishes for the success of your purchase. Don't be surprised at my congratulations coming in at this point in my letter, for it was at the corresponding point in yours that you told me of your purchase. You are a man of property! You must drop your city manners: you have become a Roman country-gentleman. How clearly I have your dearest face before my eyes at this moment! For I seem to see you buying things for the farm, talking to your bailiff, saving the seeds at dessert in the corner of your cloak. But as to the matter of money, I am as sorry as you that I was not on the spot to help you. But do not doubt, my dear Tiro, of my assisting you in the future, if fortune does but stand by me; especially as I know that this estate has been purchased for our joint advantage. As to my commissions about which you are taking trouble-many thanks! But I beg you to send me a secretary at the earliest opportunity — if possible a Greek; for he will save me a great deal of trouble in copying out notes. Above all, take care of your health, that we may have some literary talk together hereafter. I commend Anteros to you.

§ Fam.10.1  DCCLXXXIV (Fam. X, 1) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GALLIA COMATA) ROME (SEPTEMBER) In the first place I have been out of town intending to embark for Greece: and in the next place, having been recalled by the voice of the Republic from the very midst Of my journey, I have never been let alone by Marcus Antonius, whose — I won't call it insolence, for that is a mere everyday fault — but whose brutal tyranny is such that he cannot endure not only any man's voice, but even any man's look to be free. Therefore I am exceedingly anxious-not about my life indeed, for I have nothing left to do for that, whether you regard my age or my achievements or (if that, too, is to the purpose) my glory — but it is for my country that I am uneasy, and first and foremost about the time that we have to wait for your consulship, my dear Plancus, which is so long that one scarcely ventures to hope to be able to keep undergraduate life at Athens. It, however, labours under the disadvantage of being a report sent home by the young man himself rather than by his tutors — an arrangement that would suit many students in all universities. The account of his reformation is therefore perhaps a little too rosy. alive up to that point in the history of the Republic. For what hope can there be in a state in which everything is held down by the arms of the most violent and headstrong of men: in which neither senate nor people has any power of control: in which there are neither laws nor law courts — in fact, no shadow or trace even of a constitution. But as I suppose a complete gazette of public affairs is transmitted to you, there is no reason why I should enter into details. However, the affection which I conceived for you when you were a boy, and have not only maintained but have even increased, seemed to demand that I should admonish and exhort you to devote yourself heart and soul to the service of the Republic. If it survives till your term of office, all will be plain sailing. But that it should so survive demands not only great assiduity and care on your part, but also great good fortune. But to begin with we shall have you with us, I hope, a considerable time before that day: and in the next place — over and above the consideration which I am bound to have for the interests of the Republic — I also so completely give myself up to supporting your dignity, that I direct all the skill, zeal, devotion, exertion, labour, and attention of which I am capable to the promotion of your high position. It is thus, I am convinced, that I shall most readily do my duty both to the Republic, which I love above everything, and to our friendship, which I think it my most sacred duty to foster. I am not surprised that our friend Furnius is valued by you as highly as his own kindness and worth deserve. I rejoice that it is so, and I would have you believe that whatever mark of confidence and favour you bestow on him, I regard as having been bestowed by you upon myself.

§ Fam.10.2  DCCLXXXV (Fam. X, 2) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GALLIA COMATA) ROME (AFTER 19 SEPTEMBER?) No zeal which our close connexion could command in support of the complimentary vote to you would have been wanting on my part, had I been able to enter the senate with safety or dignity. But neither can anyone who freely expresses his opinion on politics appear there without danger, when there is absolutely no restraint upon the employment of armed men, nor do I think it consistent with my dignity to speak in a place where these armed men hear me more distinctly and from a shorter distance than senators. Accordingly, in private affairs you shall not have to complain of any lack of service or zeal on my part: nor indeed in public affairs either will I ever fail to appear in support of your dignity, if my presence is ever actually necessary, even at the risk of danger to myself. But in matters which can be equally well carried out, even though I am not there, I must ask you to allow me to consider my own safety and dignity.

§ Fam.10.3  DCCLXXXVI (Fam. X, 3) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GALLIA COMATA) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I was very glad to see Furnius for his own sake, but all the more glad because in listening to him I seemed to be listening to you. He vividly described your valour in war, the justice of your administration in the province, and the wisdom you displayed in every department. He mentioned besides — what our association and intimacy had not left me ignorant of — the courtesy of your manners, as well also as your very liberal conduct to himself. All these were very pleasant hearing to me: the last roused my gratitude also. I have had, my dear Plancus, a close bond of friendship with your family, formed a considerable time before you were born, a personal affection for you from your boyhood, and, when you grew up, an intimacy begun from inclination on my part and from deliberate judgment on yours. For these reasons I take extraordinary pains to support your political position, which I am convinced ought to be associated with my own. You have attained to the highest distinctions in every department, virtue showing the way, and fortune marching by your side. And these you have won though you had many detractors, whom you have baffled by your talents and industry. At present, if you will listen to me — who love you dearly and yield to no one in his claim to be a closer and older friend — you will look for every advancement in the rest of your life from the best possible settlement of the constitution. You know of course — for it could not possibly have escaped you — that there has been a period during which people thought you too much inclined to yield to the circumstances of the time. I should have thought so, too, had I thought that you approved of the things to which you submitted. But as I well knew your real sentiments, I considered that it was only that you saw the limits of your power. Now the case is different. The decision on all points is in your own hands and is unfettered. You are consul-designate: at the prime of life: a first-rate orator. And all this when the state is unusually destitute of men of this sort. In the name of Heaven, throw yourself heart and soul into the measures calculated to bring you reputation and glory. The one path to glory, especially at a time like this, when the Republic has been harassed to death for so many years, is that of honest administration. It was my personal affection that impelled me to write this to you, rather than any idea of your needing admonition and precept. For I know that you imbibed them from the same fountains as myself. Therefore I will put a period to these exhortations. For the present I thought I should only give a hint — rather to show you my affection than to display my wisdom. Meanwhile I will attend with zeal and minute care to whatever I think will affect your high position.

§ Fam.12.2  DCCLXXXVII (Fam. XII, 2) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (NEAR PUTEOLI) ROME (SEPTEMBER) I am much delighted that my expression of opinion and my speech have your approval. If one might speak like that more often, there would be no trouble about recovering freedom and the constitution. But that infatuated and unprincipled fellow — much worse than the man whom you declared to have been put to death for his flagrant iniquity — is seeking an excuse for a massacre, and accuses me of being the instigator of Caesar's assassination, with no other motive than that of inciting the veterans against me. I don't dread that danger, so long as he associates the glory of the deed which you and your fellows wrought with my reputation. Accordingly, we can none of us come to the senate in safety: neither Piso, who was the first to inveigh against him, without anyone to support him; nor I, who did the same a month afterwards; nor Publius Servilius, who followed me closely. For that gladiator is seeking for a chance of using the sword, and thought that he was going to begin with me on the 19th of September, on which day he came primed after studying his speech for many days in the villa of Metellus. But what sort of "study" was possible in brothels and drunken riots? The result was that in everybody's eyes, as I wrote you word before, he seemed to be but vomiting in his usual way, not speaking. Wherefore in reference to your remark that you felt confident that some good might be done by my influence and eloquence, I may say that some little good — considering the enormity of the evil — has been done. For the Roman people fully understand that there are three ex-consuls, who, because they have thought honestly on politics and ventured to speak freely, cannot come in safety to the senate. Nor can you expect anything more than that: for your relative is greatly delighted with his new marriage connexion; and so he no longer cares about the games, and is bursting with envy at the applause given to your brother. Your other brother-in-law has been smoothed down by the new hatch of Caesar's minutes. Still these things are endurable. But the next is intolerable — that there is a man who thinks that his son is to be consul in the year of yourself and Brutus, and for that reason avows his subservience to this bandit. For my friend Lucius Cotta, yielding to some fatal despair, now. comes less frequently to the senate: Lucius Caesar, a most loyal and gallant citizen, is hindered by ill-health: Servius Sulpicius, a man of the greatest influence and the most excellent sentiments, is not in town. As for the rest, the consuls-designate excepted, pardon me if I do not reckon, them consulars. These are the leaders of our public policy. Few enough even if things were all going well — what think you in the present disastrous position? Wherefore our sole hope is in you. And if your motive for not coming to Rome is that you cannot do so safely — there is none in you either. But if you are meditating some stroke worthy of your glory, — I pray that I may live to see it. But if that cannot be, yet at least the Republic will shortly recover its legal rights by' your means. I am not failing to support your friends, nor shall I do so. If they refer to me for anything, my goodwill to you and my-good faith shall be made manifest.

§ Fam.12.3  DCCLXXXVIII (Fam. XII, 3) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (NEAR PUTEOLI) ROME (BETWEEN 2 AND 9 OCTOBER) YOUR friend daily becomes madder. To begin with, he has caused "To the father for his eminent services" to be inscribed on the statue which he has placed on the Rostra, so that you are now condemned not only as murderers, but as parricides. But why do I say "you"? Rather I should say "we" are condemned: for that madman asserts that I was the head and front of that most glorious deed of yours. Would that I had been! He would not have been troubling us now. But it is you and your fellows who are responsible for this: and since it is past and done with, I only wish I had some advice to give you. But the fact is, I cannot feel satisfied even of what I myself ought to do. For what is possible against force without having any force oneself? Now the gist of this policy of theirs is to punish the death of Caesar. Accordingly, on the 2nd of October, being introduced to an assembly by Cannutius, Antony got indeed a very sorry reception: still, he did deliver himself of remarks about the saviours of the country which ought only to have been made about traitors. As to me, indeed, he declared outright both that you had acted and that Cannutius was acting in everything on my advice. You may judge of the rest from the fact that they have deprived your legatus of his travelling money. What explanation of that do you suppose that they give? They say, forsooth, that it is being conveyed to a public enemy! What a grievous thing, that we could not endure a master, and yet are slaves to a fellow slave! Yet after all, though my will is better than my hopes, there does remain even now some hope in your valour. But where to get forces? As to the future I would rather you consulted your own feelings, than listened to words of mine.

§ Fam.12.23  DCCLXXXIX (Fam. XII, 23) TO Q. CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME (MIDDLE OF OCTOBER) Tratorius has explained to me the whole state of the case regarding your governorship and the position of your province. How many intolerable things are being done in all quarters! But considering your high rank, the treatment accorded to you is still less endurable. For because you put up with these things in the loftiness of your spirit and character without excessive irritation, they none the less call for your vengeance, even though they do not sting your heart. But of this at a future time. I feel sure that a gazette of transactions in the city reaches you. If I had not thought so I would have written an account of them myself, and first and foremost of the attempt made by Octavianus. In regard to this the common people think it a charge trumped up by Antony, as an excuse for making an inroad upon the young man's money. Men of the world, however, and loyalists both believe that it took place and approve of it. In short, I have great hopes of him. There is nothing he may not be expected to do in future for fame and glory's sake. Antonius, however, our whilom intimate friend, feels himself to be the object of such violent dislike, that though he caught the assassins within his own doors, he does not venture to make the fact public. On the 9th of October he set out to meet the four Macedonian legions, which his idea is to win over to his side by money-bounties, to lead them to the city, and station them as fetters for our necks. There is the state of the Republic for you, if a republic can be said to exist in a camp. And in this matter I often lament your fortune in not being old enough ever to have had a taste of a sound and healthy republic. And up to this time indeed it was at least possible to hope: now even that is snatched from us. For what hope can there be, when Antony ventures to say in a public meeting that Cannutius is "seeking a place for himself with men, for whom as long as he was alive there could be no place in the state "? For my part I bear these things, and in fact all that can befall a mortal, in such a way as to make me grateful to philosophy, which not only diverts me from anxious thoughts, but also arms me against all assaults of fortune. And you too, I think, should do the same: and believe that to a man who is clear of all wrong-doing nothing is to be reckoned an evil. But you understand this better than I. I always thought highly of our friend Tratorius, but I have been specially struck by his eminent fidelity, activity, and good sense in your business affairs. Take care of your health: nothing you can do could please me more than that.

§ Fam.16.25  DCCXC (Fam. XVI, 25) M. CICERO (THE YOUNGER) TO TIRO (AT ROME) ATHENS (OCTOBER) Though your excuse for suspending your letter-writing is reasonable and sufficient, yet I beg you not to do it oftener. For though I get information about politics from rumours and the regular news, and my father always writes fully to me about his own wishes in regard to me, yet a letter written to me by you on any and every thing, however minute, has always been most delightful to me. Therefore, though there is nothing I miss so much as a letter from you, don't fulfil your obligation to write by sending an excuse rather than by regularity in actual letters. Good-bye.

§ 44.792  DCCXCII (Att. XV, 13a) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) PUTEOLI, 26 OCTOBER: Dolabella is a fine fellow! Although, as I am writing this with the dessert on the table, I am told that he had arrived at Baiae, he nevertheless wrote to me from Formiae — a letter which reached me just as I had left the bath-saying that he had done his best about assigning debtors to me. He lays the blame on Vettienus. Of course he is up to some dodge, like a true business man. But he says that our friend Sestius has undertaken the whole affair. He indeed is an excellent man and very much attached to us. Still, I am at a loss to know what in the world Sestius can do in a business like this which any one of us could not do. But if anything unexpected happens, please let me know. If; on the other hand, the business, as I think, is hopeless, write all the same. It won't disturb me at all. I am here philosophizing — what else could I do? I am composing a brilliant essay "On Duties": and addressing it to my son. For on what subject should a father address a son in preference? After that I shall begin other subjects. In short, this tour shall have something to show for itself. People expect Varro today or tomorrow. I, however, am hurrying off to Pompeii, not because anything can be more beautiful than this place, but interrupters are less troublesome there. But do tell me distinctly what was the charge against Myrtilus, for I hear that he has been executed. Is it discovered who suborned him? As I am writing these words I imagine that the speech is being delivered to you. Dear, dear! how nervous I am as to what you think of it! And yet, what does it matter to me? For it is not likely to get abroad unless the constitution has been restored. And as to that I do not venture to say what I hope in a letter.

§ Fam.11.4  DCCXCIII (Fam. XI, 4) DECIMUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT PUTEOLI) GALLIA CISALPINA (1 NOVEMBER) Decimus Brutus, imperator, consul-designate, sends regards to Marcus Cicero. If I had had any doubt about your friendly feeling towards myself, I should have begged you at great length to defend my political position. But I am, in fact, convinced that you are earnest On my behalf. I went on an expedition against the Alpine tribes, not so much because I aimed at the title of imperator, as from a wish to content my soldiers and to render them efficient for supporting our policy. And this, I think, I have accomplished; for they have had practical proof both of my open-handed disposition and of my courage. I fought with the most warlike tribes in the country: I took numerous strong places, and laid waste a wide stretch of country. I had good grounds for sending my despatch to the senate. Assist us by your senatorial support: in doing so you will to a great degree be serving the interests of the state.

§ 44.799  DCCXCIX (Att. XVI, 13a) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) AQUINUM, 10 NOVEMBER: What a wonderful coincidence! On the 8th, having got up before daybreak to quit my lodge at Sinuessa, and having just before dawn reached the Tiretian bridge at Minturnae, where the road to Arpinum branches off, there met me a letter-carrier, who found me "On long, long voyage bent." I at once exclaimed, "Here! anything from Atticus?" I wasn't able at first to read it: for I had sent away the torches and there wasn't sufficient daylight. As soon, however, as it grew light — having already written a letter to you — I began reading the earlier of your two. It certainly is the most charming letter in the world. May I perish if I do not write and exactly what I think: I never read anything kinder. So I will come when you call me, only provided that you support me. At first, however, I thought nothing could be more at cross purposes than that you should send me such an answer to the letter in which I asked for your advice. Then there is your second letter, in which you advise me to go "By windy Mimas towards the Psyrian isle," that is, leaving the Appian Way a gauche. Accordingly, I stay this day at Aquinum. It was a somewhat weary journey and a bad road. I despatch this letter next day, as I am leaving Aquinum.

§ 44.800  DCCC (Att. XVI, 13b) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) ARPINUM (10 NOVEMBER) THE letter of Eros compelled me very much against my will to let — go. Tiro will tell you about the affair. Pray consider what ought to be done. And also please say whether it is possible for me to come nearer town — for I should prefer being at Tusculum or in some suburban residence — or whether I must remove to a still greater distance. Write frequently, for there will be somebody to take a letter every day. You ask my advice besides as to what I think you ought to do. It is difficult to say at this distance. However, if the two are equally matched-stay where you are. Otherwise, the mischief will spread, and that will even reach us. Then we must put our heads together.

§ 44.801  DCCCI (Att. XVI, 13c) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) ARPINUM, II NOVEMBER: I am eagerly waiting for your advice. I am afraid of being absent when it may be more honourable to be present: yet I dare not come without proper precautions. About Antony's march I am now told something different from what I wrote to you. Please therefore unravel the whole mystery and let me have trustworthy intelligence. As to the rest, what am I to say to you? I am very keen in the study of history — for your suggestion inspires me beyond belief. But it can neither be begun nor finished without your aid. When we meet, therefore, we will hold conference on that subject at any rate. For the present, I should be glad if you would write me word in what consulship Gaius Fannius, son of Marcus, was tribune. I think I have heard that it was in the censorship of P. Africanus and L. Mummius. So I want to know if it was so. Pray send me news of every political development — - entirely trustworthy and definite. From Arpinum, 11 November.

§ Fam.16.24  DCCCIII (Fam. XVI, 24) TO TIRO (AT ROME) ARPINUM (NOVEMBER) Though I sent Harpalus this morning, yet since I had a man to whom I could safely intrust a letter, in spite of there being nothing new to say, I determined to write repeatedly to you on the same subjects: not because I did not feel confidence in your assiduity, but because the gravity of the business leaves me no rest. The top and tail (or, as the Greek proverb has it, the prow and stern) of my motive in sending you from my side was that you might put my financial affairs straight. Let Ofilius and Aurelius in any case be paid. If you can't get the whole sum out of Flamma, get a part of it: above all, see that the installment (from Dolabella) is duly paid on the 1st of January. Settle about the assignment of debts: see to the ready-money payments. So much for my private concerns. On public affairs send me all trustworthy intelligence: what Octavian, what Antony is doing; what the general opinion is; what you think is going to happen. I can scarcely pre vent myself hurrying to Rome. But, hush! I am waiting anxiously for a letter from you. Yes, Balbus was at Arpinum on the day you were told, and the next day came Hirtius. Both I think were bound for the waters. But it is all one to me! Take care that Dolabella's agents are reminded. Dun Papia also. Good-bye.

§ Fam.10.4  DCCCV (Fam. X, 4) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) GALLIA COMATA (NOVEMBER) I was very much pleased with your letters, which I note as having been written in consequence of what Furnius said to you. The excuse for not having written before which I have to offer is that I was told that you had left the country; nor did I learn of your return much before your own letter told me of it. I say this, because I do not think that I can omit any attention to you, however insignificant, without the very gravest breach of duty. For being careful to pay such attentions I have innumerable reasons, whether I look to the close ties between our fathers, or my reverence for you which began with my childhood, or your mutual affection for me. Wherefore, my dear Cicero; as far as our respective ages permit, Convince yourself that you are the one man whose society has enabled me to maintain the purity of life of which my father gave me an example. Therefore all the counsels you give are, in my eyes, inspired not more by wisdom — though in that they are supreme-than by loyal friendship, which I gauge by person. It was either never renewed, or subsequent letters have been all lost. These are the last words that have come to us of a correspondence between two men among the most remarkable existing for its continuity, as well as for its candour and complete unreserve. The remainder of the correspondence, though it carries us through almost the most momentous and exciting months ever experienced in Rome, has indeed all the agitation and stir of life, but lacks the note of complete confidence and self-revelation of the letters to Atticus. my own heart. Supposing me then to be otherwise minded, your reprimand at any rate would have been sufficient to stop me: or supposing me to be hesitating, your exhortation would have sufficed to force me to follow the course which you thought to be the most honourable. As it is, however, what is there to draw me in a different direction? Whatever advantages I possess, whether bestowed upon me by the kindness of fortune or acquired by my own labour, though your affection induces you to value them with partial kindness, are yet so great in the judgment even of my bitterest opponent, that they lack nothing but the good opinion of the world. Wherefore, if you were ever sure of anything, be sure of this — whatever effort my bodily strength, whatever provision my mental powers, whatever impression my personal influence, are capable of making — all these shall ever be at the service of the Republic. Your sentiments are not unknown to me: and if I had the opportunity — as I wish with all my heart I had — of seeing you face to face, I should never have dissented from your policy; nor even as it is will I allow any act of mine to deserve your just rebuke. I am anxiously awaiting news from every quarter, to learn what goes on in Cisalpine Gaul, or in the city, when January comes. Meanwhile my greatest anxiety and concern here are lest, instigated by the malpractices of others, these tribes should regard our difficulty as their opportunity. But if my success equals my deserts, I shall at any rate satisfy the expectations both of yourself, which is my chief ambition, and of all loyalists.

§ Fam.11.5  DCCCVI (Fam. XI, 5) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL) ROME (DECEMBER) MARCUS CICERO to Decimus Brutus, imperator, consul-designate. At the time that our common friend Lupus reached Rome, and during his few days' residence there, I was in the part of the country in which I thought I should be safest. That was the reason of Lupus returning to you without a letter from me, though he had nevertheless seen to yours being conveyed to me. I arrived at Rome, however, on the 9th of December, and my first object was an immediate visit to Pansa. His report of you was everything I could desire. Wherefore you require no encouragement, since in the execution of that great deed — surely the greatest known to history — you required none. Yet I think I ought briefly to point out that the Roman people looks entirely to you, and places on you its whole hope of eventually recovering its liberty. If you — as I am sure is the case-remember day and night how great a deed you have done, you certainly will not forget what great ones remain for you to do. For if the man now gets hold of your province — a man with whom I was always on friendly terms till I found that he was not only openly at war with the Republic, but glad to be so — I can see no hope of safety left. Wherefore I join my prayers to those of the people and senate of Rome, beseeching you to free the Republic from a tyrannical despotism, in order that you may end as you began. This is your task, this the part you have to play. It is from you that the state or rather all nations of the world-not only expect this, but even demand it. Since, however, as I said above, you do not need encouragement, I will not waste many words upon it. I will do no more than promise you — as in duty bound — all my services, zeal, care, and thought, which will henceforth be devoted to enhancing your fame and glory. Therefore pray convince yourself of this: not only for the sake of the Republic, which is dearer to me than life itself, but also because I am devoted to you personally and desire the farther improvement of your political position, I will nowhere fail to support your loyal policy, your greatness, or your glory.

§ Fam.10.5  DCCCVII (Fam. X, 5) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN TRANSALPINE GAUL) ROME (DECEMBER) I have received a letter from you in duplicate, which in itself shows me how careful you are: for I understood that you were anxious that a letter which I most ardently desired should reach my hands. From this letter I received a double satisfaction, such that it is difficult for me to decide by any comparison, whether to regard your affection for me or your loyalty to the Republic as the more valuable. As a general truth affection for one's country is, in my judgment at least, the greatest thing of all; but personal love and sympathy find certainly a softer place in our heart. Therefore your recalling the friendship of our fathers and the affection which you have bestowed on me from your childhood, and all the other circumstances accompanying that feeling, gave me the keenest pleasure. Again, the revelation of the sentiments which you entertain towards the Republic and intend to maintain was most delightful to me, and my joy was all the greater because it came in addition to what you had said before. Accordingly, my dear Plancus, I do not merely exhort you — I go so far as actually to entreat you — as I did in the letter to which you have made such an exceedingly kind answer — to throw yourself with all your soul and with every impulse of your heart into the cause of the Republic. There is nothing that can bring you higher reward or greater glory, nor is there anything that a human being can do more splendid or brilliant than to deserve well of the Republic. I say this because as yet — for your consummate kindness and wisdom permit me to speak my sentiments with candour — you seem to have accomplished the most splendid achievements with the support of fortune; and though you could not have done so without personal merit, yet to a great extent those achievements are commonly put down to fortune and the circumstances of the time. But in a crisis of such supreme difficulty as the present, whatever help you give to the Republic will be wholly and peculiarly your own. You could scarcely believe how all citizens, except the rebel party, detest Antony. High hopes are placed on you and your army-great expectations. In heaven's name, do not let slip the opportunity for gaining such popularity and glory! I counsel you as a father might a son: I am as eager for your honour as for my own: I exhort you with the fervour inspired by my country's cause and the knowledge of your devoted friendship.

§ Fam.11.7  DCCCVIII (Fam. XI, 7) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (IN CISALPINE GAUL) ROME, 19 DECEMBER: LUPUS having brought both Libo and your cousin Servius to see me at my town house, I think that you will have learnt from Marcus Seius, who was present at our conversation, what opinion I expressed. The rest you will be able to learn from Graeceius, though he did stay long behind Seius. But the head and front of it all is that I wish you most carefully to notice and to remember that you must not wait to be authorized by the senate in preserving the safety of the Roman people, for the senate is not yet free. If you do so, in the first place you condemn your own action, for you freed the Republic without any public authority — which makes it still more glorious-and, in the second place, you decide that this young man, or rather this boy, Caesar has acted without justification in having assumed such a grave public responsibility on his own initiative. Lastly, you convict of madness those who are indeed rustics, but yet are most gallant soldiers and loyal citizens — in the first place veterans who have served with you of old, and in the next place the Martian and the fourth legions, which have adjudged their own consul to be a public enemy and have transferred their services to the support of the safety of the Republic. The wishes of the senate must be regarded as its authorization, since that authorization is prevented by fear. Lastly, you have now twice espoused this cause: first on the Ides of March, and again recently by collecting a new army and new forces. Wherefore you ought to be prepared for everything, and inspired with the resolution not to decline doing anything without instructions, but to do what will secure universal praise and the greatest admiration.

§ Fam.11.6  DCCCIX (Fam. XI, 6) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT MUTINA) ROME, 20 DECEMBER: OUR friend Lupus, having reached Rome on the sixth day from Mutina, came to call on me next morning and delivered your message to me in the most explicit terms and gave me your letter. When you commend the defence of your political position to me, I regard you as at the same time commending to me my own, which, by heaven, I do not regard as dearer to me than yours. Wherefore you will be doing me the greatest favour, if you will regard it as a settled thing that no counsel or zeal on my part will ever be wanting in the promotion of your reputation. The tribunes of the plebs having given notice of a meeting of the senate for the 20th of December, and designing to make a proposal for the protection of the consuls-designate, though I had resolved not to attend the senate before the 1st of January, yet as your edict also was put up on that same day, I thought that it would be shocking either that a meeting of the senate should be held without any mention being made of your brilliant services to the Republic — which would have been the case had I been absent — or that, if anything complimentary to you were said, I should not be there to support it. Accordingly, I went to the senate early, and when that was observed there was a very full house. The motion I made in regard to you in the senate, and the speech I made in a very crowded public meeting, I should prefer your learning from the letters of others. Pray make up your mind that I will ever undertake and support with the greatest zeal every measure tending to enhance your political position, splendid as it already is in itself. I know that I shall have many companions in that policy, yet I shall aim at taking the lead in it.

§ Fam.12.22  DCCCX (Fam. XII, 22) TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME (20-31 DECEMBER) HERE at Rome we are waging war with the most abandoned, gladiator in the world, our colleague Antony, but not on equal terms, for it is words against arms. Nay, he even goes so far as to make speeches against you: but he won't do that with impunity, for he will be made to feel what sort of men he has attacked. For myself, I imagine that all public occurences are detailed to you in the letters of others: what you should learn from me is the future, as to which the conjecture is not difficult. It is a scene of universal depression: the loyalists have no leader, and our tyrannicides are in remote regions. Pansa both entertains excellent sentiments and speaks with courage. Our friend Hirtius is somewhat slow in recovering his health. What will happen I do not know at all: my one hope, however, is that the Roman people will at last show itself worthy of its ancestors. I at least will stand by the Republic, and whatever happens — as long as I have nothing for which to blamee myself — I will bear with a brave heart. This at least I will do to the best of my ability: I will support your reputation and political position. On the 20th of December a very full meeting of the senate supported my motion, which among other matters of great importance confirmed the retention of the provinces by the actual holders, and prohibited their being handed over to any successors, except those nominated by a decree of the senate. This motion was made by me in the interests of the Republic, but also, I assure you, with the primary object of sustaining your position. Therefore I beg you for the sake of our affection, I exhort you in the name of the Republic, not to suffer anyone to exercise any jurisdiction in your province, and to act in all respects with an eye to your official position, which is paramount to everything. I will be frank with you, as our friendship demands. If you had obeyed my letter in the case of Sempronius, you would have received the loudest praise from everybody. But that is past and is not very important: but that you should keep your province in its obedience to the Republic is a matter of great gravity. I would have written more had not your letter-carriers been in a hurry. So please make my excuses to our friend Chaerippus.

§ Fam.16.26  DCCCXI (Fam. XVI, 26) QUINTUS CICERO TO TIRO (TIME AND PLACE UNCERTAIN) I have castigated you, at least with the silent reproach of my thoughts; because this is the second packet that has arrived without a letter from you. You cannot escape the penalty for this crime by your own advocacy: you will have to call Marcus to your aid, and don't be too sure that even he, though he should compose a speech after long study and a great expenditure of midnight oil, would be able to establish your innocence. In plain terms, I beg you to do as I remember my mother used to do. It was her custom to put a seal on wine-jars even when empty to prevent any being labelled empty that had been surreptitiously drained. In the same way I beg you, even if you have nothing to write about, to write all the same, lest you be thought to have sought a cover for idleness: for I always find the news in your letters trustworthy and welcome. Love me, and goodbye.

§ Fam.16.27  DCCCXII (Fam. XVI, 27) QUINTUS CICERO TO TIRO (AT ROME) (FROM THE COUNTRY, LATE IN DECEMBER) YOUR letter contained a remarkable castigation of my idleness. For what my brother had written in more reserved terms — no doubt from modesty and haste-you have written to me without mincing matters and in accordance with the facts. This is specially the case in regard to the consuls-designate, whom I know thoroughly to be compact of vice and the most womanish weakness. If they do not quit the helm, there is the greatest danger of universal shipwreck. You could scarcely believe what I know of those men having done in the summer camp in face of the Gallic laager. And that ruffian Antony, unless some firm step is taken, will win them over by the infection of his vices. We must make a stand by aid of the tribunes or by an understanding between unofficial persons. For as to those two fellows — they are scarcely fit, the one to have charge of Caesena, the other of the vaults of Cossutius's wine-shops. You, as I have said, are the apple of my eye. I shall be with you all on the 30th; and as for yourself, if I meet you as I come in the forum itself, I shall cover you with kisses. Love me, and good-bye.

§ Fam.11.8  DCCCXIII (Fam. XI, 8) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT MUTINA) ROME (JANUARY) Your wife Paulla sent a message asking me "whether I had anything to send to you," at a time when I had nothing particular to say. For everything is in a state of suspense because we are waiting for the return of the ambassadors, of whose success there is as yet no news. However, I thought I ought to write and tell you this much: the senate and people of Rome are very anxious about you, not merely for the sake of their own security, but also for that of your political position. In fact the affection in which your name is held is remarkable, and the love of all the citizens for you is unparalleled. For they rest great hopes in you, and feel confident that as you formerly freed the Republic from a tyrant you will now free it from a tyranny. A levy is being held in Rome and throughout Italy, if it is to be called a levy, when all offer themselves spontaneously. Such is the enthusiasm which has taken possession of men's minds from a yearning for liberty and a loathing for their long-continued slavery. On other matters we ought by this time to be expecting a despatch from you telling us what you and our friend Hirtius are doing, and my dear Caesar, both of whom I hope will be before long united to you in the fellowship of victory. All that remains for me to say is what I prefer your learning from the letters of your family, as I hope you do — that I am not failing in any particular to support your position, and will never do so.

§ Fam.12.24  DCCCXIV (Fam. XII, 24) TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME (JANUARY) I OMIT no opportunity — as is indeed my bounden duty-not only of sounding your praises, but even of securing you marks of distinction. But my exertions on your behalf I prefer being known to you from the letters of your family rather than from my own. Nevertheless, I exhort you, on your part, to throw yourself heart and soul into the cause of the Republic. This is the proper task of a spirit and a character such as yours: it is this which is called for by the hope, which you ought to entertain, of enhancing your position. But on this point at greater length at another time. For at the moment of writing this everything is in a state of suspense. The ambassadors have not yet returned, whom the senate sent, not to beg for peace, but to proclaim war in case he did not comply with the message of its emissaries. Nevertheless, as soon as the opportunity was afforded me, I spoke in defence of the constitution in my old style. I put myself forward as a leader of the senate and Roman people: nor have I since thus undertaking the cause of freedom lost a single moment in supporting the common safety and liberty. But this, too, I should prefer your learning from others. I commend Titus Pinarius to you — my most intimate friend-with an earnestness beyond which I cannot go. I am very much attached to him for all his high qualities as well as for the tastes which we have in common. He is managing the accounts and business affairs of our friend Dionysius, of whom you are very fond, while I regard him as one of the first of men. This recommendation ought not to require any word of mine, yet I make it all the same. Pray therefore let me learn from Pinarius's letters — that most grateful of men — of your kind ness both to him and Dionysius.

§ Fam.12.4  DCCCXV (Fam. XII, 4) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (IN SYRIA) ROME, 2 FEBRUARY: I could wish that you had invited me to the banquet of the Ides of March: there would have been nothing left over! As it is, your leavings give me much trouble-yes, me more than anybody. Though our consuls are splendid, our consulars are utterly shameful. Though the senate is courageous, it is the lowest in rank that are most so. Nothing, indeed, can surpass the resolute bearing of the people, and of all Italy with one accord. Nothing, on the other hand, can well be more scandalous and unprincipled than our emissaries Philippus and Piso. For having been sent to deliver to Antony certain definite orders, in accordance with the vote of the senate, upon his refusing to comply with one of them, they have brought back to us some intolerable demands on his part. The result is that my house is thronged, and that though I am supporting a sound constitutional measure, I have now become a popular hero. But what you are doing or intending to do, even where you are, I do not know. Report will have it that you are in Syria. But there is no confirmation of it. About M. Brutus, as he is less remote, news seems more trustworthy. Dolabella is being soundly abused by the wits for being so prompt in relieving you before you had been full thirty days in Syria. So all are agreed that he ought not to be admitted into Syria. You and Brutus are both highly commended because you are thought to have collected an army beyond what was hoped. I would have written at greater length, had I known the facts and the real state of the case. As it is, what I write is founded on common opinion and rumour. I am anxiously longing for a letter from you. Good-bye.

§ Fam.10.28  DCCCXVI (Fam. X, 28) TO GAIUS TREBONIUS (IN ASIA) ROME, 2 FEBRUARY: How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March! We should have had no leavings! While, as it is, we are having such a trouble with them, that the magnificent service which you men then did the state leaves room for some grumbling. In fact, for Antony's having been taken out of the way by you — the best of men — and that it was by your kindness that this pest still survives, I sometimes do feel, though perhaps I have no right to do so, a little angry with you. For you have left behind an amount of trouble which is greater for me than for everyone else put together. For as soon as a meeting of the senate could be freely held, after Antony's very undignified departure, I returned to that old courage of mine, which along with that gallant taking over the province, as though he were "succeeding" to the governorship, without allowing his predecessor even the thirty days beyond his year given him by the Julian law. citizen, your father, you ever had upon your lips and in your heart. For the tribunes having summoned the senate for the 20th of December, and having brought a different piece of business before it, I reviewed the situation as a whole, and spoke with the greatest fire, and tried all I could to recall the now languid and wearied senate to its ancient and traditional valour, more by an exhibition of high spirit than of eloquence. This day and this earnest appeal from me were the first things that inspired the Roman people with the hope of recovering its liberty. And had not I supposed that a gazette of the city and of all acts of the senate was transmitted to you, I would have written you out a copy with my own hand, though I have been overpowered with a multiplicity of business. But you will learn all that from others. From me you shall have a brief narrative, and that a mere summary. Our senate is courageous, but the consulars are partly timid, partly disaffected. We have had a great loss in Servius. Lucius Caesar entertains the most loyal sentiments, but, being Antony's uncle, he refrains from very strong language in the senate. The consuls are splendid. Decimus Brutus is covering himself with glory. The youthful Caesar is behaving excellently, and I hope he will go on as he has begun. You may at any rate be sure of this — that, had he not speedily enrolled the veterans, and had not the two legions transferred themselves from Antony's army to his command, and had not Antony been confronted with that danger, there is no crime or cruelty which he would have omitted to practise. Though I suppose these facts to have been told you, yet I wished you to know them still better. I will write more when I get more leisure.

§ Fam.9.24  DCCCXVII (Fam. IX, 24) TO LUCIUS PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES) ROME (FEBRUARY) Your friend Rufus, on whose behalf you have now twice written to me, I would have assisted to the best of my power, even if he had done me an injury, when I saw that you were so anxious in his favour. Since, however, both from your letter and from one which he has himself written to me, I perceive and am convinced that my safety has been a matter of much anxiety to him, I cannot fail to be his friend: and that not solely from your recommendation which has deservedly the greatest weight with me — but also from my own feeling and deliberate judgment For I wish you to know, my dear Paetus, that your own letter was the origin of suspicion, caution, and careful inquiry on my part; and I afterwards received other letters from many quarters which were of like tone to yours. For both at Aquinum and Fabrateria plots were laid against me, of which I perceive that you have had some information; and as though these men divined how much trouble I was likely to give them, their design was nothing short of my complete ruin. Being then totally unsuspicious of this, I should have been more off my guard, had I not received this hint from you. Therefore that friend of yours requires no recommendation with me. Heaven send that the future of the Republic be such as to make it possible for him to appreciate my extreme gratitude! But enough of this. I am sorry to hear that you have given up going out to dinner: for you have deprived yourself of a great source of amusement and pleasure. Again, I am even afraid-you'll allow me to speak frankly — that you will unlearn and partly forget that habit of yours — the giving of little dinners! For if even when you had models on which to form yourself, you made so little progress in the art, what am I to expect of you now? Spurinna, indeed, when I told him about it and described your former way of living, pointed out the serious danger to the state if you did not recur to your old habits with the first breath of Spring. It might, he said, be endured at this time of year, if you could not stand the cold! But, by Hercules, my dear Paetus, without joking I advise you to cultivate the society of good, agreeable, and affectionate friends, for that is the secret of happiness. Nothing, I say, is more satisfying or contributes more to a happy life. And I do not found this on mere pleasure, but on the social intercourse and companionship, and that unbending of the mind which is best secured by familiar conversation, nowhere found in a more captivating form than at dinner-parties. This is more wisely indicated by us Latins than by the Greeks. The latter talk of συμπόσια and σύνδειπνα, that is, "drinkings together" and "suppings together," we of "living together" (convivium), because in no other circumstance is life more truly lived than in company. Do you see I am using philosophy to try and lure you back to dinners? Take care of your health: that you will secure with least difficulty by dining out. But pray, as you love me, don't suppose that because I write jestingly I have cast off all care for the state. Be assured, my dear Paetus, that I work for nothing, care for nothing all day and night except the safety and freedom of my fellow citizens. I omit no occasion of warning, pleading, adopting precautions. In fact, my feeling is that, if I have to give my very life to this task and to pushing these measures, I shall think myself supremely fortunate. Goodbye! Good-bye!

§ Fam.12.5  DCCCXVIII (Fam. XII, 5) TO GAIUS CASSUS LONGINUS (IN SYRIA) ROME (FEBRUARY) I SUPPOSE that the winter has as yet prevented us from getting any certain news from you, as to what you are doing, and above all where you are. Nevertheless, it is the general talk — the wish, no doubt, is father to the thought — that you are in Syria and in possession of forces. That statement finds the readier belief that it seems likely in itself. Our friend Brutus for his part has gained a brilliant reputation: for his achievements have been so great and unexpected that, while welcome in themselves, their distinction was enhanced by their rapidity. But if you command the extent of territory which we suppose, the Republic has gained very strong supports. For from the nearest shore of Greece as far as Egypt we shall have been put under the protection of the authority and forces of the most loyal citizens. However, unless I am mistaken, as the situation now stands, the ultimate decision of the whole war seems to rest with Decimus Brutus. If he, as we hope, breaks cut from Mutina, I think there will be a complete collapse of the war. The forces at present besieging him are very small, because Antony is occupying Bononia with a large army. Our friend Hirtius, moreover, is at Claterna, Caesar at Forum Cornelium, both with a strong army; while Pansa has collected large forces at Rome from the levy in Italy. Winter has at present prevented any movement. Hirtius seems likely to do nothing, as he tells me in frequent letters, without careful preparation. Except Bononia, Regium Lepidi, and Parma, we have the whole of Gaul devoted heart and soul to the constitution. Even your clients the Transpadani we find attached to the cause with surprising unanimity. The senate, with the exception of the consulars, is most resolute, but of the consulars Lucius Caesar alone is loyal and honest. By the death of Servius Sulpicius we have lost a great support For the rest, some are inactive and some disloyal A certain number are envious of the reputation of those whom they see to be held in honour in the Republic. But the unanimity of the Roman people and the whole of Italy is wonderful. This is pretty well all which I wanted you to know. My present hope and prayer is that the sun of your valour may shine forth from those regions of the East.

§ Fam.12.11  DCCCXIX (Fam. XII, 11) GAIUS CASSIUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) TARICHEA (PALESTINE), 7 MARCH: If you are well, I am glad. I and the army are well. I have to inform you that I went to Syria to join the imperators Lucius Murcus and Quintus Crispus. Those gallant gentlemen and excellent citizens, having heard what was going on at Rome, handed over their armies to me and are themselves now assisting me with the greatest gallantry in the public service. Also I have to report that the legion which was under the command of Quintus Caecilius Bassus has joined me, and that the four legions which Aulus Allienus led from Egypt have also been handed over to me. In these circumstances I do not think that you require urging to defend me in my absence and the public interests, as far as in you lies. I wish you to know that neither you nor the senate are without trustworthy support to enable you to defend the constitution with the highest hopes and the firmest courage. Of the rest you will be informed by Lucius Carteius, my intimate friend. Good-bye. 7 March, in camp at Tarichea.

§ Fam.12.7  DCCCXX (Fam. XII, 7) TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS (IN SYRIA) ROME (EARLY IN MARCH) WITH what zeal I have defended your political position, both in the senate and before the people, I would rather you learnt from your family than from me: and my proposal would have been carried in the senate, had it not been for the strong opposition of Pansa. After having made that proposal in the senate I was introduced to a public meeting by the tribune M. Servilius. I said what I could about you in a voice loud enough to fill the whole forum, and with such cheering and acclamation from the people, that I have never seen anything like it. Pray pardon me for acting in this against the wish of your mother-in-law. The lady is timid and was afraid of Pansa's feelings being hurt. In the public meeting in fact Pansa stated that your own mother also and your brother were against my making that motion. But I was not moved by these things. My mind was set on other objects. It was the Republic of which I was thinking, of which I have always thought, and of your position and glory. Now I hope that you will redeem the pledges which I gave both in senate and before the people at considerable length. For I promised and almost pledged myself that you had not waited and would not wait for any decrees of ours, but would yourself defend the constitution in your own way. And although we have not yet had any intelligence either of where you are or what forces you have, yet I have made up my mind that all the resources and troops in that part of the world are in your hands, and feel confident that by your means the province of Asia has been already recovered for the Republic. Take care to surpass yourself in promoting your own glory. Good-bye.

§ Fam.10.31  DCCCXXI (Fam. X, 31) C. ASINIUS POLLIO TO CICERO (AT ROME) CORDUBA, 16 MARCH: You ought not to think it at all surprising that I have written nothing to you on public affairs since war broke out. For the pass of the Castulonian Mountains, which has always delayed my letter-carriers, though it has now become still more dangerous from the increase of banditti, is yet by no means so grave a hindrance as the parties which, stationed at every available position at both ends, spy out my letter-carriers and detain them. Accordingly, if I didn't get letters by sea, I should be entirely ignorant of what was going on at Rome. Now, however, having got an opportunity, since navigation has begun, I shall write to you with the greatest eagerness and as frequently as I can. There is no danger of my being affected by the conversation of the man, whom — though there is no one who can bear the sight of him-men can yet never hate as much as he deserves. For he is so utterly detestable in my eyes that everything I have to do with him is odious to me. Moreover, my actual disposition and pursuits incline me to desire peace and liberty. Accordingly, I have often bitterly mourned over that first step in the civil war. Since, however, it was impossible for me to be neutral, because I had bitter enemies on both sides, I shunned the camp, in which I knew for certain that I should not be safe from the plots of my personal enemy. Being thus compelled to go to the last place to which I desired to go, that I might not be lost in the crowd, I boldly confronted dangers without any hesitation. To Caesar, indeed, who regarded me as one of his oldest friends, though he had not known me until he had reached his own splendid position, I was attached with the utmost devotion and fidelity. What I was permitted to do in harmony with my own opinion I did in such a manner as to procure the warmest approbation of all the best men. When I acted under orders, I did so with so much deliberation and in such a spirit as made it evident that I was an unwilling recipient of the commands. But the wholly undeserved odium roused by my conduct sufficed to teach me the charm of liberty and the wretchedness of life under a tyranny. Accordingly, if the object of the present proceedings is to bring everything once more under the power of a single person, whoever he is, I avow myself his enemy: nor is there any danger which I would shun or deprecate on behalf of liberty. But the consuls have neither by senatorial decree nor by despatch given me any instructions as to what I was to do. For I have only received one despatch from Pansa, and that not till the 15th of March, in which he urges me to write a letter to the senate declaring that I and my army will be at its disposal.. But seeing that Lepidus was making speeches and writing to tell everybody that he was at one with Antony, this was the most awkward possible step for me to take. For by what road was I to lead my legions through his province against his will? Or if I had effected the rest of the journey, could I take wings and fly over the Alps, which are occupied by his force? Add to this the impossibility of a despatch getting through on any terms: for letter-carriers are examined in countless places, and finally are even detained by Lepidus. No one will question the sincerity of my public pronouncement at Corduba, that I would hand over the province to no one who did not arrive with a commission from the senate. For why need I describe the violent controversies I have had about handing over the thirtieth legion? And if I had handed it oyer, who does not know how much less effective in serving the state I was likely to be? For I assure you that it is the most gallant and best fighting legion in existence. Wherefore make up your mind that I am, to begin with a man most strongly in favour of peace — for I am seriously desirous that all citizens should be unmolested — and in the second place one prepared to assert my own and the state's freedom alike. Your admitting my friend into the list of yours is more gratifying to me than you can think: yet I am envious of his walking and jesting with you. You will ask me how much I value that. If ever I am allowed to enjoy leisure you shall find out from experience: for I will never budge a step from your side. One thing does profoundly surprise me — that you have never written to tell me whether I could better serve the Republic by remaining in my province or by leading my army into Italy. For my part, though it is safer and less laborious to remain, yet because I see that at such a crisis there is much more occasion for legions than for provinces (especially such as can be recovered without difficulty) I have resolved, as things are now, to start with my army. For the restt, you will learn everything from my despatch to Pansa, for I am inclosing a copy of it for your perusal. 16 March, Corduba.

§ Fam.12.25  DCCCXXII (Fam. XII, 25) TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME (ABOUT THE 20TH OF MARCH) ON the 17th of March I received your letter, which your son handed to me on the 21st day — as he said-from its despatch. Neither on that nor the following day was there any meeting of the senate. On the Quinquatrus Minervae (19th of March) before a full house I pleaded your cause — not unfavoured by Minerva herself. For in fact on that very day the senate decreed that my statue of Minerva, which a storm had thrown down, should be restored. Pansa read your despatch. It was followed by strong expression of approval from the senate, to my great joy and the great chagrin of the "Minotaur " - I mean Calvisius and Taurus; and a decree was passed about you in complimentary terms. A demand was even made that these men should have some stigma inflicted upon them, but Pansa was for milder measures. For myself, my dear Cornificius, on the day (the 20th of December) on which I first conceived a hope of freedom and, while everybody else shrank from beginning, laid the foundations of a recovered constitution — on that very day, I say, I made careful provision and calculation for the maintenance of your position. For it was for my motion as to the retention of the provinces that the senate voted. Nor indeed did I subsequently cease from discrediting the man, who to your great injury and to the discredit of the Republic was retaining the province, though he had himself left it. Accordingly, he was unable to stand out against my frequent, or rather daily attacks upon him, and unwillingly returned to Rome: and was driven not from a mere hope, but from what was now a certainty and an actual possession, by my most righteous and dignified invective. That you have employed your eminent courage in successfully retaining your position, and have been complimented by the greatest honours a province can bestow, is a subject of lively satisfaction to me. As to your defence of yourself in regard to Sempronius, I accept your explanation; for that was a dark period of servitude. I, the supporter of your policy and champion of your position, enraged at the position of affairs and despairing of freedom, was on the point of hurrying off to Greece, when the Etesian winds, like loyal citizens, refused to further me in my desertion of the Republic, and a south wind blowing in my teeth carried me back by his strongest blast to your fellow tribesmen of Rhegium. And so from thence I hurried at full speed — sail and oar together — to my country; and the day after my arrival was the one free man in a nation of slaves. I delivered such an invective against Antony that he could not bear it, and vented all his vinous madness on my devoted head, and endeavoured at one time to entice me to give him an excuse for bloodshed, at another tried to entrap me. But I hunted him belching and vomiting into the toils of Caesar Octavianus. For that illustrious youth collected for himself a protecting force — at first in favour of our party, and subsequently in that of the supreme state. And if it hadn't been for him, Antony's return from Brundisium would have sealed the fate of Rome. The events which followed I think you know. But to return to the point from which I have strayed. I accept your explanation as to Sempronius: for you could have no fixed principle of procedure in the midst of such complete disorganization. " But time has passed and taught a different way; And nobler manners asks our nobler day," as Terence says. Wherefore, my dear Quintus, embark with us, and even approach the helm. All loyalists are now in the same boat, which we are doing our best to keep in the straight course. Pray heaven for a prosperous voyage! But whatever the winds may be, skill on my part at least shall not be wanting: for to what beyond that can virtue pledge itself? For your part keep a good heart and lofty spirit, and reflect that your whole position must needs stand and fall with the Republic.

§ Fam.10.6  DCCCXXIII (Fam. X, 6) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GAUL) ROME, 20 MARCH: WHAT our friend Furnius reported as to your disposition towards the Republic was highly pleasing to the senate and most cordially approved of by the Roman people. But your despatch, which was read in the senate, did not seem at all to harmonize with the verbal report of Furnius. For you are for peace, though that illustrious man your colleague is being actually besieged by the most abandoned outlaws, who ought to beg for peace after laying down their arms; or if they demand it with arms in their hands, we must attain that peace by victory, not by making terms. But how your despatch about peace, or that of Lepidus, has been received you will be able to learn from that honourable man your brother, and from Gaius Furnius. However, my affection for you has made me anxious that, although you are not yourself wanting in sagacity, and although you have the goodwill and loyal wisdom of your brother and Furnius ever at your side, yet, Considering the many ties between us, some injunction should reach you with the cachet of my authority also. Well then believe me, my dear Plancus, that all the steps in official promotion which you have hitherto attained — and they are of the most honourable nature-will convey nothing but the empty titles of office without the true marks of dignity, unless you throw in your lot with the liberty of the Roman people and the authority of the senate. Separate yourself, I beseech you, at length from those to whom you have been bound, not by your own deliberate judgment, but by the chains of circumstance. Many in the confusion of public affairs have received the title of consulars, not one of whom is regarded as really a consular, unless he has shown the true spirit of a consular towards the state. This is the sort of man that you are bound to be, first in withdrawing yourself from association with disloyal citizens extremely unlike yourself; next in giving your services as supporter, champion, leader to the senate and the whole loyalist party; and lastly in making up your mind that peace does not consist in merely laying aside arms, but in dispelling the fear of arms and slavery. If this is your policy and these your sentiments, you will not only be a consul and a consular, but also a great consul and a great consular. If not, in these splendid titles of office there will not only be no dignity, there will be the extremity of dishonour. Under the influence of my warm feeling for you I write these words with somewhat unusual gravity. But you will find them to be true, if you put them to the test of practice — the only method worthy of you. 20 March.

§ Fam.10.27  DCCCXXIV (Fam. X, 27) TO MARCUS AEMILIUS LEPIDUS (IN NARBONENSIS) ROME, 20 MARCH: SINCE from my extreme goodwill to you it is a matter of much concern to me that you should enjoy the most splendid political position possible, I was much vexed that you did not thank the senate, though you had been complimented by that body with its highest honours. I am rejoiced that you are desirous of promoting peace between fellow citizens; but if you keep it free from servitude you will be acting in the interests both of the state and of your own position. But if the peace of which you speak is to put an unprincipled person once more in possession of unrestricted tyranny, let me assure you that all sound-feeling men are resolved to prefer death to slavery. So in my opinion you will be acting with more wisdom if you do not commit yourself to promoting a pacification, which has the approval of neither senate, nor people, nor any loyalist. But you will be told this by others or will be informed of it by letter. Your own good sense will show you what is best to be done.

§ 43.824a  DCCCXXIV A (13 PHIL. 22-46) M. ANTONIUS TO HIRTIUS AND CAESAR THE CAMP AT MUTINA (MARCH) THE news of the death of Gaius Trebonius caused me as much regret as joy. One cannot help being glad that a wicked wretch has given satisfaction to the ashes and bones of a most illustrious man, and that Divine Providence has manifested its power before the end of one revolving year in the punishment, or immediate prospect of the punishment, of parricide. On the other hand, one cannot repress a sigh that Dolabella at such a time as this should be adjudged a public enemy for having killed a murderer; and that the Roman people should care more for the son of a mere man-about-town than for Gaius Caesar. But the most painful thing of all, Aulus Hirtius, is that you who were ennobled by the favours of Caesar and left by him in a position which surprises yourself — and that you, young sir, who owe everything to his name — are acting in a way to sanction Dolabella's condemnation and to release this pestilent fellow from his state of siege. In order, I suppose, that Brutus and Cassius may be all-powerful! The fact is, you regard the present situation as you did the former, when you used to speak of Pompey's camp as "the senate." You have taken Cicero as your leader, who was beaten then; you are strengthening Macedonia with troops; you have intrusted Africa to Varus, who had been twice made a prisoner; you have sent Cassius to Syria; you have allowed Casca to be tribune; you have withdrawn the revenue given by Iulius to the Luperci; you have by decree of the senate abolished colonies of veterans which were established by law; you are promising the Massilians to refund what was taken from them by the right of war; you give out that no living Pompeian comes under the lex Hirtia; you have supplied M. Brutus with money sent by Appuleius; you have commended the executions of Petrus and Menedemus, who were presented with the citizenship and were beloved by Caesar. You have taken no notice of the expulsion of Theopompus by Trebonius and of his flying stripped of everything to Alexandria; you have Servius Galba in your camp armed with the self-same dagger. You have got together an army of soldiers who are either legally mine, or who have served their time, on the pretext of destroying the murderers of Caesar, and yet have forced them contrary to their expectations to assist in endangering the lives of their own quaestor or commander or fellow soldiers. In fact what have you not consented to or done which Gnaeus Pompeius would do, if he could come to life again, or his son if he could regain his home? Lastly, you say that there can be no peace, unless I either allow Decimus Brutus to march out or supply him with corn. Do you mean to tell me that this is the opinion of the veterans who have not yet committed themselves, even though you have been corrupted by flattery and insidious gifts to come here? But, you will say, it is besieged soldiers that you are attempting to relieve. Them I have no objection to spare and to allow to go wherever you order them, on the one condition that they give him up to the death he has so richly deserved. You say in your letter that mention has been made in the senate of a pacification, and that five consulars have been appointed as legates. It is difficult to believe that the men who violently repelled me, though I offered the most equitable terms, and was thinking nevertheless of mitigating even them, should be entertaining any thoughts of moderation or be likely to act with common charity. It is scarcely likely even that men who have declared Dolabella a public enemy for a most righteous act should be capable of sparing us who are at one with him in heart. Wherefore I would have you consider which of the two courses is in the better taste and the more advantageous to your party — to punish the death of Trebonius or that of Caesar: and whether it is more right that we should meet as foes and so allow the Pompeian cause so often defeated to revive, or that we should come to terms and so avoid being a laughing-stock to our enemies, who will be the gainers whichever of us perishes? Such a spectacle as this Fortune herself as yet has shunned. She has not seen, that is, two armies of the same body politic fighting like gladiators with Cicero for a trainer, who has been so far successful as to deceive you both by the same formal honours by which he has boasted of having deceived Caesar. For my part I am resolved not to submit to the degradation of myself or my friends, nor to desert the party which Pompey hated, nor to allow the veterans to be turned out of their homes, nor to be dragged off one by one to punishment, nor to break the faith which I pledged to Dolabella, nor to violate my compact with that devoted patriot Lepidus, nor to betray Plancus who is a sharer in my policy. If the immortal gods, as I hope they will, aid me in my plain and honest course, I shall survive with satisfaction to myself; but if a different fate awaits me, I feel an anticipatory pleasure in the punishment which will befall you. For if the Pompeians are so arrogant in defeat, I would rather you than I should experience what they will be in victory. In fact the upshot of my decision is this: I am ready to put up with the injuries done to my party, if they will either consent to forget that they are Caesar's assassins, or are prepared to join us in avenging his death. I cannot believe in legates approaching a place which is being at the same time menaced by war. When they have arrived I shall learn their demands.

§ Fam.12.28  DCCCXXV (Fam. XII, 28) TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME (MARCH) I agree with you that the men whom you say in your letter are threatening Lilybaeum ought to have been punished on the spot; but you feared, you say, being thought to be giving too free a rein to vengeance. That is as much as to say, you feared being thought a high-minded citizen, too courageous, too worthy of yourself. I am obliged to you for renewing the partnership with me — inherited from your father — in working for the best interests of the state. That partnership, my dear Cornificius, will always be kept up between us. I am obliged also by your thinking that I needed no thanks on your behalf. For there ought to be no question of thanks between you and me. The senate would have been more frequently called upon to compliment you, if in the absence of the consuls it had been ever summoned except for the consideration of some fresh complication. Accordingly, neither in the business of the 20 sestertia, nor of the 700 sestertia, can anything be now done in the senate. I think, however, that in virtue of the original senatorial decree you must raise the money by impost or loan. What is going on in political matters I expect you know from the letters of those whose duty it is to send you copies of the acta. I am in good heart. In prudence, vigilance, and labour I am not wanting. To all enemies of the constitution I avow my most uncompromising hostility. Even now the situation does not appear to be a very difficult one, and it would have been quite free from difficulty had it not been for misconduct in certain quarters. [The three following letters of introduction to Cornificius probably belong to the early part of this year, but cannot be dated.]

§ Fam.12.26  DCCCXXVI (Fam. XII, 26) TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME: Quintus Turius, who was a banker in Africa, a good and honourable man, made Certain men of like character to himself his heirs-Gnaeus Saturninus, Sextus Aufidius, Quintus Considius Gallus, Lucius Servilius Postumus, Gaius Rubellius. From what these men have said to me, I have gathered that what they require is a letter of thanks rather than of recommendation. For they spoke of having experienced such great kindness at your hands, that I came to the conclusion that you had already done more for them than I should venture to ask. However, I will venture: for I know how much weight a recommendation of mine has with you. Therefore I beg you to allow the liberality, which you have already displayed without any letter from me, to receive a finishing touch as complete as possible by this one. The chief point, however, of my recommendation is that you should not allow Eros Turius, the freedman of Quintus Turius, to possess himself of the property left by the latter, as up to the present time he has done; and that you should regard these men in all other matters as most warmly commended by me. You will derive much pleasure from their high position and grateful attentions. I beg you repeatedly to be kind enough to do this.

§ Fam.12.27  DCCCXXVII (Fam. XII, 27) TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME: Sextus Aufidius does not leave my closest friends far behind in the attentions which he shows to me, and in social distinction is second to no Roman knight. His character, too, is so nicely balanced and tempered, that the strictest decorum is in him united with the most large-hearted kindness. I commend this man's African business to you with a warmth and heartiness beyond which I cannot go in such a commendation. You will be doing me a very great favour, if you will take the trouble to make him understand that my letter has had very great influence with you. I earnestly beg you, my dear Cornificius, to do so.

§ Fam.12.29  DCCCXXVIII (Fam. XII, 29) TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME: NOT you only, who are most intimately acquainted with all my concerns, but nobody in all Rome I think is ignorant of the great friendship existing between me and Lucius Lamia. For it was displayed before a large audience at the time of his being banished from the city by the consul Aulus Gabinius for having supported my recall with freedom and courage. Nor was that the first origin of our affection, but it was just because of its long standing and depth that he did not hesitate to confront any danger on my behalf. To these acts of kindness, or, as I should rather call them, these claims upon my gratitude, an intimate intercourse is to be added, so exceedingly charming, that there is literally no one in whom I take more delight. I do not suppose in these circumstances that you are at a loss to imagine what the terms of my commendation of him will be. For you know well what words are the natural expression of such a strong affection. Consider me to have employed them all. I would merely wish to assure you that if you support Lamia's business, agents, freedmen, or slaves in anything whatever that they may require, you will be obliging me more than if that kindness of yours had affected my own property. Nor do I doubt that even without a recommendation from me you — who are so excellent a judge of men — are certain to do everything with enthusiasm for Lamia's own sake. However, I have been told that you think Lamia assisted in drawing up some senatorial decree which militated against your position. But the fact is, he did not assist in drawing up any decree whatever in that consulship. In the next place, all kinds of bogus decrees were at that time being deposited in the aerarium, unless you should actually suppose that I assisted in drawing up that decree about Sempronius — though I wasn't even in town, as I told you in my letter about it at the time just after it occurred. But enough of this. I beg you repeatedly, my dear Cornificius, to look upon all business of Lamia's as mine, and take pains to make him understand that this commendation has been of great service to him. You cannot oblige me more. Take care of your health.

§ Fam.10.7  DCCCXXIX (Fam. X, 7) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) GALLIA COMATA (23 MARCH) I would have written you a longer letter about my plans and given you an account of all my movements in greater detail, to convince you more fully that I have done every-thing for the Republic which your exhortation first suggested to me, and which I took upon myself to perform — for I always wished for your approval as much as for your love, and did not so much secure you as my defender in case of committing a fault, as wish for you as a trumpeter of my services — but two circumstances make me more brief. The first is that I have fully stated everything in my public despatch. The second is that I have ordered Marcus Varisidius, a Roman knight and my intimate friend, to go home in person and visit you: so that from him you might learn every particular. I can assure you on my honour that I have been feeling very considerable vexation at seeing others anticipating me in the winning of reputation; but I have put a restraint upon myself until I could succeed in doing something worthy both of my consulship and of what you and your friends expect of me. And, if fortune does not play me false, I hope I shall succeed in making men feel now and remember hereafter that I have been a very great protection to the constitution. I beg you to give firm support to my position, and to make me still more energetic in the future by the actual fruition of those advantages, by the hope of which you inspired me to aim at glory. I feel convinced that your power is as great as your will. See that you keep well and return my affection.

§ Fam.10.8  DCCCXXX (Fam. X, 8) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO THE MAGISTRATES AND SENATE GALLIA COMATA (23 MARCH) PLANCUS, imperator, consul-designate, greets the Consuls, praetors, tribunes of the plebs, the senate, the people and commons of Rome. In case anyone thinks that I have kept public expectation and the hopes of the state as to my disposition too long in suspense, I think I must offer an explanation to such a man before proceeding to promise anything to anybody as to my future services. For I do not wish to have the appearance of having made up for a previous error, but to be delivering in the fullness of time the long-cherished sentiments of a loyal heart. It did not escape me that at a time of such profound public anxiety and such great political confusion the profession of loyal sentiments is a most profitable thing to make, and I saw that a considerable number of people had secured high honours by that means. But since fortune had brought me to such a pass as to force me to choose between making premature promises, and thereby of my own act raising up formidable obstacles to the accomplishment of any useful service, or putting a restraint upon myself in that respect, and thereby having better opportunities of rendering aid, I chose a course better calculated to secure the public safety than my own reputation. For who is there that in the high position I at present enjoy, and after a life such as I think the world knows mine to have been, and with the prospects which I actually possess, could submit to anything degrading or set his heart upon anything likely to be mischievous? But I required a considerable time, heavy labours, and great expense in order finally to make good my promises to the Republic and all loyal citizens, and in order not to approach the task of aiding my country with no equipment except good intentions, but with the requisite resources. I had to secure the loyalty of my army, which had been often tampered with by the offer of great bounties, and to persuade it to look to the state for moderate rewards, rather than to a single person for unlimited ones. The loyalty also of numerous tribes had to be secured, which in the previous year had been laid under obligations by bounties and grants of compensations; and they had to be convinced that such rewards were shadowy, and that they must try to obtain the same privileges from more constitutional sources. I had also to sound the intentions of the other commanders of neighbouring provinces and armies, and induce them to join me in championing freedom in conjunction with the majority,' rather than that we should share with the minority a victory disastrous to the world at large. Moreover, I had to take precautions for my own safety by increasing my army and multiplying the number of my auxiliaries, in order that, while making no secret of my sentiments, I might yet incur no danger by its being publicly known, even though some objected, which side I meant to embrace. Accordingly, I shall never deny that, in order to arrive at the accomplishment of these designs, I have, contrary to my inclinations, pretended to feelings that I did not entertain, and with pain dissembled those that I did. For I saw from what had befallen my colleague the danger of a premature revelation of intentions by a loyal but unprepared citizen. On this account I have given my legate Gaius Furnius — a gallant and energetic officer-still fuller instructions by word of mouth than are contained in this despatch, to the end that they might reach you with greater secrecy, and I might remain in greater security. And I have instructed him as to what is required for strengthening the public safety and properly equipping myself. And from this it may be understood that the care of the defence of our country's highest interests has not for long past been suffered to sleep in my breast. By the blessing of heaven we are now in a better state of preparation in every particular, and we wish all the world not merely to have good hopes, but to feel certain, of us. I have five legions under colours, united by their own loyalty and excellence to the Republic with the most absolute fidelity, and at 'the same time devoted to me in response to my liberal treatment of them. I have a province in the best possible state from the unanimous consent of all its tribes, and inspired by the keenest emulation in its display of loyalty. My cavalry and auxiliary, forces are as numerous as the tribes in this country can raise in defence of their own safety and liberty. For myself I am fully prepared either to defend my province, or to go wheresoever the Republic calls me, or to hand over army, auxiliaries, and province. Or I would not even decline to bear the whole brunt of the war in my own person, provided that by my own disaster I might secure the safety of my country or delay its danger. I am making these promises when all difficulties have been already solved, and the political crisis is over, I shall rejoice in the benefit to my country, though I thereby lose my chance of earning reputation. But if I am to find myself involved in a share of dangers still at their most unabated height, I commend the defence of my policy to, impartial judges against the detraction of the envious. As for the reward of my own services, that is sufficiently secured in the safety of the state. Yet I think I ought to ask you to regard as commended to your consideration those who have followed my lead, and still more their duty to you, and have been proof against the deception of any promises or the terror of any threats.

§ Fam.10.10  DCCCXXXI (Fam. X, 10) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (N GALLIA COMATA) ROME, 30 MARCH: THOUGH I had been fully informed by our friend Furnius as to your sentiments and your, policy in regard to the Republic, yet the perusal of your letter has enabled me to form a clearer judgment of your whole mind. Wherefore, though the entire fortune of the state is depending on the result of one battle — which I think by the time that you read these words will have been already decided-yet by the mere report of your sentiments which has gained currency you have earned great applause. Accordingly, it we had had a consul at Rome, the senate would have put on record in terms highly complimentary to you how much your contemplated movement and the preparations you have made are appreciated. And for that the time has not only not passed, but in my opinion is not even yet fully ripe. For in my eyes the only compliment worthy the name is that which is offered and given to illustrious men, not in hope of future advantage, but for important services actually rendered. Wherefore, if only some form of a state exists in which the light of honour is, capable of displaying its brightness, there are no honours, believe me, however splendid, with which you will not be lavishly endowed. Now this honour, which can be truly so called, is not meant to impart a momentary impulse, but is the reward of unvarying excellence. Wherefore, my dear Plancus, throw yourself heart and soul into the pursuit of glory: come to your country's rescue; relieve your colleague; support the unanimous desire and the wonderfully united aspiration of all nations. You will find in me a supporter of your policy, a promoter of your dignity, in every particular your most loving and faithful friend. For to the other reasons for our being united by love, mutual good services, and long habit, there is now added devotion to our country: and that has been sufficient to make me prefer your life to my own. 30 March.

§ Fam.12.1  DCCCXXXII (Fam. XII, 1) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (IN SYRIA) ROME (1-7 APRIL) The political situation at the time of my writing these lines you will learn from Gaius Titius Strabo, a man of character and of the most excellent political sentiments: I need not add "and very desirous of your company," for he has left the country to join you in preference to everyone else, abandoning house and fortune. His own arrival will be a sufficient recommendation of him in your eyes. I would have you realize the fact and have no doubt about it, that the only chance of finding refuge left for loyalists depends on you and Brutus, in the case — which I hope may not occur — of any reverse being sustained. At the moment of my writing the decisive moment has arrived. For Decimus Brutus is at his last gasp at Mutina: if he has been relieved, the victory is ours. But if not — which God forbid — we shall all of us hurry with one accord to you. Therefore be prepared in courage and material forces for the great task of recovering the constitution in its full completeness. Good-bye.

§ Fam.10.12  DCCCXXXV (Fam. X, 12) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GALLIA COMATA) ROME, 11 APRIL: ALTHOUGH on public grounds I ought to be extremely rejoiced that you have given the state so much protection and so much aid in what is almost a desperate crisis, yet while I shall embrace you with my whole heart as conqueror if the constitution be restored, still what causes me a great part of my joy is the position you occupy, which I perceive is and will be of the most splendid kind. For do not imagine that any despatch was ever read in the senate which gave greater satisfaction than yours. And that was the result not only of what I may call the brilliancy of your services to the Republic, but also of the loftiness of your language and sentiments. To me, indeed, it was nothing new, for I knew you, remembered the promises contained in your private letter to myself, and had a thorough acquaintance with your views from our friend Furnius. But to the senate your words seemed beyond what they had expected, not because it had ever doubted your good intentions, but because it had not thoroughly realized how much you could do nor how far you were willing to go. Accordingly, when Marcus Varisidius handed me your letter early in the morning of the 7th of April, and I had read it, I felt an amazing thrill of joy; and as a great crowd of the most distinguished men and citizens were escorting me from my house, I at once made them all sharers in my pleasure. Meanwhile our friend Munatius came as usual to see me. Well, I handed him your letter, for as yet he knew nothing about you, Varisidius having come to me before anyone else, saying that such were your orders. A little later Munatius also allowed me to read the letter you had sent him, as well as your public despatch. We decided to transmit the despatch at once to the city praetor Cornutus, who, in the absence of the consuls, was, according to traditional custom, performing the consular functions. A meeting of the senate was at once summoned and there was a large attendance, owing to the rumour and general anticipation in regard to your despatch. After your despatch had been read a religious difficulty was suggested to Cornutus, because the pullarii informed him that he had not taken the auspices with the proper formalities, and that was confirmed by our augural college. Accordingly, business was postponed to the next day. Well, on that day I had a warm debate with Servilius in defence of your position. He had exercised his influence to get his motion put first, but a large majority of senators quitted him and voted directly against it. But when my motion, which was put second, was being largely supported, at the request of Servilius it was vetoed by P. Titius. The business was deferred till the next day. Servilius came prepared "to fight Iupiter himself," in whose temple the debate was to be held. How I crushed him, and with what fiery eloquence I brought the vetoing Titius upon his knees, I would rather you learnt from the letters of others. Take this one fact from mine. The senate could not have been more resolute and firm or better disposed to your glory than it was on this occasion. Not that the senate is a bit more friendly to you than the whole body of citizens. For there is a surprising unanimity of feeling among the entire Roman people, with the united aspiration of all conditions and classes, in favour of recovering the public liberty. Go on, then, as you have begun, to make your name immortal! And as for all those empty shows of glory, founded on the most unsubstantial badges of external splendour, despise them; and regard them as short-lived, counterfeit, and perishable. True glory rests on virtue, which is shown to the highest advantage by services done to the state. You have the most excellent Opportunity for performing these. Since you have embraced it and still possess it, see that the state owes you as much as you owe the state. You will find in me not only a supporter of your high position, but a promoter of its increase. That much I think I owe both to the Republic, which is dearer to me than life itself, and to our friendship. And in these exertions, which I have consecrated to the support of your position, I have found a great pleasure in the still clearer view I have gained of the wisdom and loyalty of Titus Munatius — though I knew these before — as displayed in his extraordinary devotion and activity in your service. 11 April.

§ Fam.10.30  DCCCXXXVIII (Fam. X, 30) SERVIUS SULPICIUS GALBA TO CICERO (AT ROME) CAMP NEAR MUTINA, 16 APRIL ON the 15th of April, the day on which Pansa was to arrive at the camp of Hirtius, with the former of whom I was — for I had gone along the road a hundred miles to hasten his arrival-Antony brought out two legions, the second and the thirty-fifth, and two praetorian cohorts, one his own and the other that of Silanus, and a party of reservists. He confronted us with such a force because he thought that we had only four legions of recruits. But in the course of the night, in order to enable us to reach the camp in greater safety, Hirtius had sent us the Martian legion — which I usually command — and two praetorian cohorts. As soon as Antony's horsemen came in sight, neither the Martian legion nor the cavalry could be held back. The rest of us were obliged to follow them, as we could not stop them. Antony was keeping his men under cover at Forum Gallorum, and did not wish it to be known that he had the legions. He was allowing none but his cavalry and light-armed men to be seen. When Pansa saw that the legion was advancing in spite of him, he ordered two legions of recruits to follow his lead. As soon as we had got past the narrow ground of marsh and forest, our line was drawn up, consisting of twelve cohorts. The two legions had not yet come up. All on a sudden Antony brought his forces out of the village on to the field, and without waiting charged. At first the fighting was as keen as it was possible for it to be on both sides: although the right wing, on which I was with eight cohorts of the Martian legion, had at the first brush put Antony's thirty-fifth legion to flight, so that it advanced more than five hundred paces beyond the line from its original ground. Accordingly, when the cavalry attempted to outflank our wing, I began to retire and to throw my light-armed troops in the way of the Moorish cavalry, to prevent their charging my men in the rear. Meanwhile, I became conscious that I was between two bodies of Antony's troops, and that Antony was himself some way on my rear. I at once galloped towards the legion of recruits that was on its way up from camp, with my shield slung behind my back. Antony's men set off in pursuit of me; while our own men began pouring in a volley of pila. It was a stroke of good luck that I got safely out of it, for I was soon recognized by our men. On the Aemilian road itself, where Caesar's praetorian cohort was stationed, the fight was protracted. The left wing, being somewhat weak, consisting of two cohorts of the Martian legion and a praetorian cohort, began to give ground, because it was in danger of being outflanked by the cavalry, in which Antony is exceedingly strong. When all our lines had retired, I began retiring myself towards the camp on the extreme rear. Antony, regarding himself as having won the victory, thought that he could capture our camp. But when he reached it he lost a large number of men without accomplishing anything. The news having reached Hirtius, he met Antony as he was returning to his own camp with twenty veteran cohorts, and destroyed or put to flight his whole force, on the same ground as the battle had been fought, namely, at Forum Gallorum. Antony, with his cavalry, reached his camp near Mutina at the fourth hour after sunset. Hirtius returned to the camp, from which Pansa had issued, where he had left the two legions which had been assaulted by Antony. Thus Antony has lost the greater part of his veteran forces. This, however, naturally could not be accomplished without some loss in our praetorian cohorts and the Martian legion. Two eagles and sixty colours of Antony's have been brought in. It is a great victory. 16 April, in camp.

§ Fam.10.9  DCCCXLII (Fam. X, 9) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) NEAR VIENNE IN GALLIA NARBONENSIS (27 APRIL) I am glad that I made no rash promise to you, and that you did not pledge yourself to anything for me without good ground. At any rate you have the stronger evidence of my affection for you in the fact that I wished my plans to be known to you sooner than to anyone else. I hope you clearly perceive that additions to my services are being made every day. I undertake that you shall know it still better. As far as I am concerned, my dear Cicero — as surely as I hope that the state may be relieved through me of the evils that threaten it — though I regard with respect the rewards and honours which you senators have it in your power to bestow — worthy surely to be compared with immortality — yet even without them I am not likely to slacken at all in my zeal and persistence. Unless in the crowd of the most loyal citizens my enthusiasm has been conspicuous and my exertion eminent, I do not desire any accession to my honour by the votes of your house. I covet no honour for myself — it is against such covetousness that I am myself fighting. I am quite content that you should have the decision both of its amount and of its season. A citizen can never think honour paid him by his country either too late or insufficient. I got my army across the Rhone on the 26th of April by forced marches. I sent forward a thousand cavalry from Vienne by a shorter route. If I am not delayed by Lepidus, I shall myself leave nothing to be desired in the way of speed. If; however, he puts himself across my line of march, I shall take such measures as seem necessary. I am bringing a force thoroughly satisfactory as to numbers, nature, and loyalty. I beg you for your affection, as you know that it will be only mutual.

§ Fam.11.9  DCCCXLIV (Fam. XI, 9) DECIMUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) REGIUM LEPIDI, 29 APRIL: WHAT a loss the Republic has sustained by the death of Pansa you must be well aware. In these circumstances you must use your influence and foresight to prevent our opponents hoping to regain their strength now that the consuls have been removed. I will take care that Antony is unable to keep any footing in Italy. I am following him in hot haste. I hope that I shall secure two things — that Ventidius does not slip past me nor Antony remain in Italy. I specially beg you to send instructions to that shiftiest of men Lepidus, that he may not be in a position to renew the war against me if Antony effects a junction with him. For as to Asinius Pollio, I think you are quite clear as to what he will do. The legions of Lepidus and Asinius are numerous, good, and strong. And I don't write this to you because I know that the same facts escape your notice, but because I am most thoroughly convinced that Lepidus will never go straight-should you by chance have any doubt on that point! I beg you also to keep Plancus up to the mark, who will — I hope-stick to the Republic now that Antony has been defeated. If Antony has got himself across the Alps, I have resolved to station a force on the Alps and to keep you informed of everything. 29 April, in camp at Regium.

§ Fam.10.11  DCCCXLV (Fam. X, 11) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) GALLIA NARBONENSIS (APRIL) I GIVE you undying thanks, and shall do so as long as I live: since I cannot promise to repay you. For I do not think that I can possibly make a return for such great services as yours, unless by chance, as you remarked in such eloquent and impressive words in your letter, you will consider me to have repaid you as long as I remember them. If it had been a question of your own son's position, you could not have acted at any rate more affectionately. Your first motions in the senate proposing unlimited rewards for me, your later ones made to square with circumstances and the wishes of my friends, your constant and formal speeches about me, and your wordy warfare on my behalf with my detractors — these are all most thoroughly known to me. I must be more than commonly careful to show myself as a citizen worthy of your praise, mindful and grateful as your friend. For the future see that your bounty is not wasted; and if by results and facts you find that I am the man you wished me to be, defend me and take up my cause. Having crossed the Rhone with my troops, and having sent forward my brother with 3,000 cavalry, while I was myself on the march for Mutina, I was told on the road of the battle that had taken place, and of Brutus and Mutina being relieved. I saw that Antony and the remains of his force had no other place of retreat except in this district, and that he had two hopes in view-one of Lepidus himself; the other of his army. As a certain fraction of my army is as infatuated as those who were with Antony, I recalled my cavalry. I halted in the country of the Allobroges myself; that I might be as completely prepared for every eventuality as the situation required. If Antony comes into this district without forces, I think I am strong enough by myself to resist him, and to carry on the business of the country in accordance with the judgment of your house, even though he be admitted by the army of Lepidus. But if he brings some of his forces with him, and if the tenth veteran legion, which, having been recalled to its duty by my exertion, is now with the others, relapses into its old mad conduct, nevertheless I will do my best to prevent any loss; and I hope I shall prevent it, provided that forces from Rome are sent across, and by forming a junction with me find it easier to crush these abandoned men. This much I will promise you, my dear Cicero, that no vigour or careful attention shall be wanting on my part. I would to heaven there was no anxiety left, but if there is, I will not fall short of any man's loyalty or perseverance on behalf of you all. I am indeed doing my best to induce Lepidus to share this policy with me, and I am promising to defer to him in every way, if he will only consent to regard the interests of the Republic. I am employing as coadjutors and go-betweens in this negotiation my brother, and Laterensis, and our friend Furnius. I will not be stopped by private quarrels from coming to an understanding with my bitterest foe on behalf of the safety of the Republic. But if I am unsuccessful, nevertheless I will do what you wish with the greatest determination, and perhaps with some addition of reputation to myself. Take care of your health, and give me love for love.

§ Fam.12.25  DCCCXLVII (Fam. XII, 25) TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME (MAY) You recommend P. Lucceius to me, whom I will assist in whatever ways I shall have the power. Yes indeed, it is a most unfortunate time in which to have lost our colleagues Hirtius and Pansa, whose consular administration was beneficial to the Republic, when, though relieved from the Antonian violence, it has not yet been put on a thoroughly sound footing. For my part, if the power is given me, I shall continue to defend it, though by this time I am desperately weary. But no amount of fatigue ought to stand in the way of duty and honour. However, enough of this. I would rather you learnt about me from others than myself. What I hear of you exactly answers to my wishes. About Cn. Minucius, whom in one of your letters you praised to the skies, there are somewhat unfavourable rumours. What the truth of the matter is, and in general what is going on in your province, please let me know.

§ Fam.10.14  DCCCXLIX (Fam. X, 14) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GALLIA COMATA) ROME, 5 MAY: WHAT a pleasant report it was that we received two days before that of the victory of the support you were bringing up, of your zeal, your rapid movements, and the forces at your disposal! And yet even now that the enemy have been repulsed our whole hope is in you. For the most notorious ringleaders of those outlaws are said to have escaped from the battle of Mutina. Now it is no less satisfactory to wipe out the last part of an invasion than to drive off the first. As for me, I am anxiously looking for a letter from you, and my anxiety is shared by many. I am in hopes, too, that Lepidus — warned by the present state of public affairs-wilt act with you and the Republic. Therefore, my dear Plancus, make it your special aim that not a single spark of that most abominable war be left alight. If this is accomplished, you will have done the state a service more than human and will also win imperishable honour for yourself. 5 May.

§ Fam.11.10  DCCCL (Fam. XI, 10) DECIMUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) DERTONA, 5 MAY: I DO not think that the Republic owes me more than I owe you. You have good assurance of my being capable of greater gratitude to you than those misguided persons show me: and that if after all my words seem to be dictated by the exigencies of the hour, I prefer your approval to that of all those people on the other side. For your judgment of us proceeds from an independent and sincere feeling: they are debarred from that by malice and jealousy. Let them interpose to prevent my receiving marks of honour, so long as they do not prevent the public service being properly conducted by me. The extreme danger in which that now stands I will explain as briefly as I can. To begin with, you cannot fail to observe what a confusion in city business is caused by the death of the consuls, and how much ambition this vacancy in the office inspires in men. I think I have written as much as can be committed to paper. For I know to whom I am writing. I now return to Antony, who, though when he fled he had only a handful of unarmed infantry, seems, by breaking open slave-barracks and requisitioning every kind of human being, to have made up a very Considerable number. To this has been added the force of Ventidius, which after accomplishing a difficult march across the Apennines has reached Vada and has there affected a junction with Antony. There is a very considerable number of veterans and fully armed soldiers with Ventidius. Antony's plan of campaign must certainly be either to join Lepidus, if Lepidus will have him; or to keep behind the lines of the Apennines and Alps, and to lay waste the district which he has invaded by sending out parties of cavalry, of which he has large numbers; or to draw back into Etruria, since that part of Italy has no army in it. But if Caesar had listened to me and crossed the Apennines, I should have reduced Antony to such straits, that he would have been ruined by failure of provisions rather than by the sword. But neither can anyone control Caesar, nor can Caesar control his own army-both most disastrous facts. These things being so, I won't hinder anybody, as far as I am concerned, from interposing, as I said before. It alarms me to think how these difficulties are to be removed, and, when they are removed by you, of the fresh hindrances that may intervene. I am already unable to feed and pay my men. When I undertook the task of freeing the Republic I had more than 40,000 sestertia in money. So far from any part of my private property remaining unencumbered, I have by this time loaded all my friends with debt. I am now supporting a force amounting to seven legions, you can imagine with what difficulty. Not if I had all the treasures of Varro, could I stand the expense. As soon as I have any certain information about Antony I will let you know. Pray continue to love me with the assurance that I entertain the same feeling for you. 5 May, in camp, Dertona.

§ Fam.11.11  DCCCLI (Fam. XI, 11) DECIMUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) STATIELLAE, 6 MAY: DECIMUS BRUTUS, imperator, consul-designate, salutes Marcus Cicero. I have received a letter from you which is a duplicate of that brought by my own servants. I consider that I owe you a debt that it is difficult to repay. I write to tell you what is going on here. Antony is on the march his object is to reach Lepidus. He hasn't given up hope even of Plancus yet, as I gather from some of his papers which have fallen into my hands, in which he noted the names of the men he was sending to Asinius, to Lepidus, to Plancus. I, however, did not hesitate what to do. I at once sent messengers to Plancus, and in the course of a couple of days I expect ambassadors from the Allobroges and the whole of Gaul, whom I shall encourage to remain loyal and shall send home again. Pray make provision for all necessary measures at Rome, that they may be conducted as you would wish them to be, and with advantage to the Republic. People's malice against me pray frustrate if you can. If you can't, console yourself with the reflexion that they cannot move me from the position I have taken up by any amount of abuse. 6 May, in camp, in the district of Statiellae.

§ Fam.12.12  DCCCLII (Fam. XII, 12) C. CASSIUS LONGINUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) SYRIA, 7 MAY: IF you are well, I am glad. I also am well. I have read your letter in which I recognized your uncommon affection for me. For you seemed not merely to wish me well — as you always have done on private arid public grounds alike — but to have involved yourself'in very grave responsibility and to be exceedingly anxious about us. Therefore, because in the first place I thought that you would believe that we could not remain inactive when the Republic was crushed: and in the second place because, as you suspected that we were moving, I thought you would be anxious as to our safety and the result of the operations, as soon as I received the legions brought by Aulus Allienus from Egypt, I wrote to you and sent a number of messengers to Rome. I also wrote a despatch to the senate, which I said was not to be delivered until it had been read to you — if by any chance my messengers have chosen to obey me. If these letters have not reached you, I have no doubt that Dolabella, who seized the government of Asia after the abominable murder of Treboinius, has caught my letter-carriers and intercepted the despatches. I have now under me all the Roman forces in Syria. I have been delayed for a short time whilst providing the promised pay for the soldiers. I am only just free from that difficulty. I beg you to consider that the defence of my position is committed to you, as you know full well that I have declined no danger and no labour in the service of my country: as on your suggestion and advice I have taken up arms against the most, unscrupulous outlaws: as I have not only collected armies to defend the Republic and liberty, but have also rescued them from the most bloodthirsty tyrants. If Dolabella had anticipated me in getting hold of these armies he would have strengthened Antony's hands, not only by their actual arrival, but also by giving him reason to think 'and expect that they were coming. For which achievements defend my soldiers, since you understand that they have done wonderfully, good service to the state, and secure' that they do not regret having preferred to make the Republic the object of their labours rather than the hope of booty and plunder. Maintain. also the position of the imperators Murcus and Crispus as far as lies in your power. For Bassus was desperately unwilling to hand over his, legion' to me. Had not his soldiers in spite of him sent agents to me, he would have kept Apamea closed until it had been stormed. I make these remarks to you not only in the name of the Republic, which has always been the object of your deepest affection, but also in the name of our friendship, which I feel sure has the greatest weight with you. Believe me that this army is at the service of the senate and all the most loyal citizens, and above all of yourself. For from continually being told of your patriotism they regard you with wonderful devotion and affection. And if they come to understand that their interests engage your attention, they will also regard themselves as owing you everything. Since writing this letter I have been informed that Dolabella has arrived in Cilicia with his forces. I shall start for Cilicia. Whatever I succeed in doing I will take care to let you know promptly. I can only hope that we may be as fortunate as our services to the state deserve. Keep well, and love me. 7 May, in camp.

§ Fam.10.13  DCCCLIV (Fam. X, 13) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GALLIA COMATA) ROME (10 MAY) From the first moment that the opportunity was given me of promoting your position, I omitted nothing that was calculated to do you honour, whether in the way of substantial reward for valour or of complimentary words. That you will be able to learn from the decree of the senate itself: for it was drawn up word for word as I delivered my motion from a written copy; which motion was carried by a full senate with great enthusiasm and striking unanimity. Although I clearly gathered from your letter to me that you cared more for the approval of good men than for the outward badges of distinction, yet I thought that we ought to take into calculation — even if you made no demand — how much was due to you from the Republic. See that you make the end tally with the beginning. For the man who crushes Antony will have finished the war. Just so Homer did not give either Ajax or Achilles the title of" city-sacker," but Ulysses.

§ Fam.11.13  DCCCLV (Fam. XI, 13) DECIMUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) POLLENTIA (12 MAY) I am not going to thank you any more; for when one can make a man no return in deeds, it is impossible to satisfy his just claims by mere words. I want you to notice what I have on my hands. For your insight is so great that you will take in the whole situation, if you read my letter with care. I was unable, my dear Cicero, to pursue Antony at once for the following reasons. I had no cavalry, no transport animals; I did not know that Hirtius was dead; I did not know that Aquila was dead; I couldn't put any confidence in Caesar without first visiting and holding a conversation with him. So passed the first day. Next day early I was summoned by Pansa to Bononia. While I was on the way news was brought to me that he was dead. I hurried back to my poor little force — for I can call it so with truth. It was most woefully reduced and in the very worst condition from want of every kind of necessary. Antony thus got two days start of me. He made much longer marches, as being in retreat, than I could in pursuit. For he marched in loose order, I in close. Wherever he came he broke open the slave-barracks and forcibly requisitioned the men. He never made any halt anywhere till he reached Vada. I would like you to know about this place. It lies between the Apennines and the Alps, very difficult to reach by a march. When I was thirty miles from it, and when Ventidius had already effected a junction with him, a public speech delivered by Antony was reported to me, in which he began entreating his men to follow him across the Alps, telling them that he had an understanding with Marcus Lepidus. There was some murmuring, and from a good many of Ventidius's men — for Antony has very few of his own — that it was their duty to perish or conquer in Italy; and they began begging him to allow them to march to Pollentia. Not being able to withstand them, he arranged to begin his march the next day. When I received this intelligence I at once sent forward five cohorts to Pollentia and directed my march to that place. My advanced guard arrived at Pollentia an hour before Trebellius with his cavalry. I was greatly delighted: for I think that this constitutes a victory. ...

§ Fam.10.15  DCCCLVI (Fam. X, 15) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) CULARO (Modern Grenoble), 13 MAY: What has happened since my last letter was written I thought it for the public service that you should know. My persevering attention has, I hope, borne some fruit both for myself and the Republic. For by a continual interchange of messages I urged Lepidus, laying aside all Controversies and admitting a reconciliation between us, to join me in coming to the rescue of the Republic; to have regard for himself; his children, and the city, as more precious than one abandoned and humiliated outlaw: and I promised him that he should find me thoroughly at his command in every undertaking if he did so. I have made some way with him; and accordingly he has by our intermediary Laterensis pledged his word to me that he will make war on Antony, if he fails to prevent his entrance into his province. He has asked me to join him and combine our forces. He is the more urgent on that point because Antony for his part is said to be strong in cavalry, while Lepidus himself is not even moderately equipped in that respect. For even from the small number that he did possess, ten of the best a few days ago had deserted to my camp. When I was informed of these facts I did not delay: I thought that Lepidus was to be encouraged in the path of loyalty. I saw what my arrival was likely to effect, either because I could, as I reckoned, pursue and crush his cavalry with mine, or because I might, I thought, by bringing my army up, reform and put pressure upon that part of Lepidus's army which was disaffected and disloyal to the state. Accordingly, having made a bridge in a single day across the Isara — a very large river which bounds the territory of the Allobroges — I got my army across on the 12th of May. Having, however, received information that Lucius Antonius with cavalry and some cohorts had been sent in advance and had arrived at Forum Iulii, I sent my brother with 4,000 cavalry on the 13th of May to meet him. I am going to follow him with four legions in fighting order and the rest of my cavalry as quickly as I can march. If the good fortune of the Republic aids us even to a moderate degree, we shall here find an end to the presumption of a set of ruffians and to our own anxiety. But if that outlaw gets timely warning of our approach and retreats into Italy, it will be the business of Brutus to meet him, who will not, I know, lack either strategy or courage. However, if that happens, I shall send my brother with the cavalry in pursuit of him, to protect Italy from being looted. Take care of your health and return my affection.

§ Fam.10.21  DCCCLVII (Fam. X, 21) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) CAMP ON THE ISARA, 15 MAY: I should have been ashamed of the contradictory nature of my despatches, had not this depended on the caprices of another. I had adopted every possible precaution for enabling me, by combining with Lepidus for the defence of the Republic, to resist these ruffians with less anxiety to you all at Rome. I conceded everything he demanded and volunteered much besides, and two days ago I wrote to tell you that I felt sure of finding Lepidus loyal, and that I should conduct the war in consultation with him. I trusted to his own handwriting, and to the personal assurances of Laterensis, who was then in my camp and was entreating me to be reconciled to Lepidus and to trust him. I was not long allowed to entertain good hopes of him. At least I have taken precautions, and will continue to do so, that the fortune of the Republic does not suffer from any credulity on my part. When after constructing a bridge in a single day I had got my army across the Isara, using all the rapidity which the gravity of the situation demanded, because he had written to me with his own hand asking me to hasten my arrival, I was met by his orderly bringing a despatch in which he warned me not to come, saying that lie could finish the affair independently, and that I should meanwhile wait for him on the Isara. I will tell you what my idea on the spur of the moment was. I had resolved to go all the same, thinking that what he was trying to avoid was having anyone to share in his glory. I thought that I could avoid trenching at all upon the reputation of a poor-spirited man, and yet could be at hand on some convenient ground, so as to be able to render prompt aid in case of any reverse. This was my idea in the innocence of my heart. But Laterensis, who is a thoroughly honourable man, sent me a letter in his own handwriting, expressing excessive despair of himself; of the army, of the good faith of Lepidus, and complaining that he had been thrown over. In this letter also he openly warned me to be on my guard against being taken in: said that he had been true to his word: and begged me not to abandon the Republic. I have sent a copy of his original letter to Titius. The original documents themselves, both those in which I believed, and those in which I thought no confidence was to be placed, I will give to Laevus Cispius — who was cognizant of all these transactions — to take home. An additional complication is that when Lepidus harangued his men, the soldiers who are disaffected in themselves and have been also tampered with by their officers-your Canidii, Rufreni, and all that lot, whose names you shall know when needful-joined in shouting, excellent fellows! "that they desired peace and would not fight with anybody, after two distinguished consuls had been lost, so many citizens killed in defence of their country, and when finally all had been declared public enemies, and had their property confiscated." As this outbreak was neither punished nor allayed by Lepidus, I saw that I had been infatuated and rash to come here, and expose my thoroughly loyal army, my very numerous auxiliaries, the leading men of Gaul, and my whole province to those two combined armies. I saw, too, that had I been overpowered in these circumstances, and dragged down the Republic with me into ruin, my death would not only have been without honour, but without even pity. Therefore I am about to return, and will not allow the possibility of such great advantages being presented to such scoundrels. I will take care to keep my army on advantageous ground, to protect my province, even though Lepidus's army has joined in the defection, not to commit myself to anything, until you send reinforcements from home, and to defend the constitution here with the same good fortune as has been done elsewhere. At the same time, no one was ever more ready to fight a pitched battle, if occasion presents itself; or to stand a siege, if it turns out to be necessary; or to die, if so it happens, in your defence. Wherefore I urge upon you, my dear Cicero, to see to an army being sent across to this district as soon as possible, and to hasten that measure before the enemy consolidates his strength and our men begin to be shaken in their allegiance. If that is done promptly, traitors will be destroyed, and the victory will remain with the Republic. Take care of your health and love me.

§ Fam.10.21  DCCCLVIII (Fam. X, 21) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) CAMP ON THE ISARA (15 MAY) NEED I write to you in vindication of my brother, gallant citizen and thoroughly prepared for every kind of duty as he is? His hard work has brought on a feverish attack, which is persistent and rather troublesome. As soon as he is well enough he will not hesitate to hurry back to Rome, so as not to be wanting in his duty to the Republic anywhere. I pray you to consider that the defence of my position is committed to you. I have no occasion for any ambition: I have in you a most devoted friend and — what I always desired-possessed now of the greatest influence. It is for you to consider the extent and time of your favours to me. The only request I make to you is that you give me Hirtius's place both in your affection and in the privilege of showing you attentions.

§ Fam.11.12  DCCCLIX (Fam. XI, 12) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (NEAR POLLENTIA) ROME (BETWEEN 14 AND 19 MAY) I have received three letters from you on the same day: one a short one which you had intrusted to Volumnius Flaccus; two of greater length, one of which the letter-carrier of Titus Vibius brought, the other was forwarded to me by Lupus. To judge from your letters and from what Graeceius says, the war, so far from being extinguished, is hotter than ever. However, I feel sure that your eminent wisdom makes it clear to you that, if Antony gets any firm foothold, all those brilliant services of yours to the state will come to nothing. For the news that reached Rome, and what everybody believed, was that Antony had fled with a small body of men, who were without arms, panic-stricken, and utterly demoralized. But if he is in such a position, as Graeceius tells me, that he cannot be offered battle without risk, he appears to me not to have fled from Mutina, but merely to have changed the seat of war. Accordingly, there is a general revulsion of feeling. Some people even grumble at your not having pursued him: they think that he might have been crushed if expeditious measures had been taken. It is ever the way with a populace, and above all with that of Rome — they vent their freedom without restraint on the very man who secured it for them. All the same, we must take care that there is no just cause of complaint. The fact is this: that man will have finished the war, who has crushed Antony. The point of that remark I would rather leave you to grasp than express it more openly myself.

§ Fam.10.34  DCCCLXV (Fam. X, 34) M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) PONS ARGENTEUS (18 MAY) If you are well, I am glad. I am well. Having been informed that Antony, after sending Lucius Antonius in advance with a detachment of his cavalry, was coming with his forces into my province, I moved with my army from the confluence of the Rhone and determined to oppose them. Accordingly, I have come by daily marches to Forum Voconii, and to the east of that town I have pitched a camp on the river Argens opposite the Antonians. Publius Ventidius has united his three legions with him and has pitched a camp still farther to the east. Antony had before this junction the fifth legion, and a large number of men drawn from the other legions, but without arms. He has a large force of cavalry: for it got away after the battle without loss, so that there are more than five thousand troopers. A large number of infantry and cavalry have deserted to me from him, and his force is shrinking every day. Silanus and Culleo have abandoned him. Although they had done me a serious wrong in having joined Antony contrary to my wish, yet for kindness' sake, and in view of our close connexion, I have granted them their lives, but I am not employing them, nor allowing them to remain in camp, and I have not given them any command. As far as this war is concerned, I shall not be wanting in my duty to the senate nor to the Republic. I will keep you acquainted with my future proceedings.

§ Fam.10.18  DCCCLXVI (Fam. X, 18) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) GAUL, 18 MAY: WHAT I had in my mind when Laevus and Nerva quitted me you have been able to ascertain by the letter which I forwarded by them and from these men personally, who have taken part in all my actions and consultations- There has happened to me what usually does happen to a man of honour and one who is desirous of doing his duty to the state, in fact to all good men, that I preferred to pursue a dangerous course with an approving conscience, rather than a safe one which might lay me open to some reproach. Accordingly, after the departure of his legates, as Lepidus in two successive letters begged me to join him, and Laterensis still more strongly begged me to do so in terms almost of entreaty-showing no dread of anything except what causes me also some alarm, the fickleness and untrustworthy temper of his army — I thought I ought not to hesitate about hurrying to his assistance and confronting the common danger. Now the safe course for me was to wait on the Isara till Dec. Brutus got his army across the mountains, and to go to meet the enemy with a colleague in sympathy with my views and an army in full accord and well-affected to the had not opposed Antony's passage, and indeed seems to have joined him (App. B.C. 3.83). Republic, as his soldiers are. Nevertheless I knew that if Lepidus while entertaining loyal ideas came to any harm, it would all be laid to the charge either of my obstinacy or my timidity. I saw plainly that this would' be so, if I either failed to relieve a man closely united with the Republic, though on bad terms with myself, or had myself withdrawn from the struggle in a war of such moment. So I preferred to run the risk, and to see whether my presence might afford Lepidus protection and render his army better-affected, rather than appear over-cautious. At any rate I think there never was anyone more anxious, without any fault of his own, than myself. For the very situation which was causing me no hesitation, supposing Lepidus's army away, in the present state of things brings me great anxiety and involves great risk. For if it had been my fortune to encounter Antony first, he would not, by heaven, have held his ground an hour. So confident do I feel in myself and so completely do I despise his demoralized forces and the division of Ventidius the mule-man. But I cannot but shudder at the idea of some hidden wound, which may cause mischief before it can be known and treated. But certainly unless I had remained on the same ground Lepidus himself and the well-affected part of his army would have incurred great danger. The unscrupulous enemy also would have secured a great accession of force, if they had withdrawn any of his troops from Lepidus. And if my arrival has stopped these things occurring I shall thank my stars and my own firmness, which incited me to make this experiment. Therefore on the 20th of May I broke up my camp on the Isara: I left the bridge standing, however, which I had constructed over that river, with a fort placed at each end of it; and in them I stationed strong garrisons, that there might be a means of crossing without delay ready for Brutus and his army when he came. I shall myself, I hope, in eight days from the despatch of this letter effect a junction with the forces of Lepidus.

§ Fam.11.18  DCCCLXVII (Fam. XI, 18) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (NEAR VERCELLAE) ROME, 19 MAY: THOUGH from the message which you gave to Galba and Volumnius for the senate I have a good guess as to what you thought was the danger ahead, yet the message seemed to me to be less confident than suited the victory gained by yourself and the Roman people. The senate, however, my dear Brutus, is resolute and has resolute leaders. It was therefore somewhat hurt that it should be considered timid and spiritless by you, whom it considered the bravest of men. For considering that even when you were invested everybody retained the most confident hope in your valour, though Antony was in full vigour, who could be afraid of anything after he had been defeated and you released? Nor, indeed, are we afraid of Lepidus. For who in the world could expect him to be such a madman as, after saying in the midst of a most formidable war that he desired peace, to proclaim war against the Republic after the ardently desired peace had been obtained? And I do not doubt your seeing farther ahead than we can. But nevertheless a renewal of alarm so soon after the thanksgiving which we offered at all the temples in your name does cause bitter disappointment. Therefore, for my part, my wish is — as it is my hope — that Antony has been entirely ruined and crushed: but if he has by chance collected some forces, he shall feel that the senate is not without wisdom, nor the Roman people without valour, nor the Republic — as long as you are alive — without a general. 19 May.

§ Fam.10.17  DCCCLXVIII (Fam. X, 17) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) NEAR FORUM VOCONII, 20 MAY: ON the 15th of May Antony reached Forum Julii with his advanced guard. Ventidius is two days' march behind him. Lepidus is encamped at Forum Voconii, which is twenty-four miles from Forum Julii, and has settled to await me there, as he has himself written to tell me. But if neither Lepidus himself nor fortune disappoints me in any way, I pledge myself to finish this business quickly in the manner in which you in the senate desire. I told you in a previous letter that my brother was ill, worn out by continuous work and rapid movements. Nevertheless, as soon as he could set foot to ground, considering that his restored health was not his own more than the state's, he was for leading the forlorn hope everywhere. But I have not merely urged, I have forced him to start for Rome — partly on the grounds that in his state of health he was more likely to wear himself to death than to assist me in camp, and partly because I thought that the Republic, having been left bare by the most regrettable death of the consuls, required the presence of such an eminent citizen as praetor for the conduct of city business. But if any of you at Rome disapprove, let it be known that it was I that lacked prudence in counsel, not he fidelity to his country. After all, Lepidus did what I wanted him to do — he sent me Apella to hold as a hostage of his good faith and of his co-operation in the public service. In that business I was well satisfied with the services of L. Gellius, whom I employed as my last emissary to Lepidus. I think that I ascertained him to be attached to the Republic, and it will give me pleasure to testify to him and to all who serve the state well. Take care of your health, return my affection for you, and defend my position, if I deserve it, as you have done up to this time with remarkable kindness.

§ Fam.11.19  DCCCLXXI (Fam. XI, 19) DECIMUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) VERCELLAE, 21 MAY: I SHOULD wish you to read over first the despatch which I have sent the senate and make any alterations you think right. You will notice that I could not avoid writing it: for while I thought that the fourth and Martian legions would be serving with me, in accordance with the motion of Drusus and Paullus, with the support of you senators, I thought I need not much concern myself about anything else. In present circumstances, however, when I am accompanied by the most ill-equipped raw recruits, it is inevitable that I should be much alarmed both on my own account and on yours. The people of Vicetia show very great attention to me and Marcus Brutus. I beg you to see that no wrong is done them in the senate on the question concerning their home-born slaves. They have a very strong case, are very loyal to the Republic, and have a class of men opposed to them seditious and extremely idle.

§ Fam.10.34  DCCCLXXII (Fam. X, 34) M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) PONS ARGENTEUS, 22 MAY: M. LEPIDUS, a second time imperator, Pontifex Maximus, greets Marcus Tullius Cicero. Though at every period we have vied with each other, in the interchange of good offices in a manner worthy of our mutual friendship, and have both been careful to keep them up, still I have no doubt that in such a sudden disturbance of political affairs some reports about me have been conveyed to you in groundless rumours by my detractors, sufficient greatly to agitate your mind in view of your devotion to the Republic. That you have been cautious in receiving them, and have not judged it right to believe them without inquiry, I have been informed by my agents. This is exceedingly gratifying to me, as it is bound to be. For I remember what on a previous occasion your kindness prompted you to do in order to promote and enhance my position: and it will ever remain fixed in my heart. I earnestly beg of you, my dear Cicero, if you have proof of my life and of my zeal in the most careful performance of public duties being worthy of the name of Lepidus, to expect equal or even more splendid services in the future, and to think accordingly that I am one who deserves the protection of your authority, in proportion as your good services make me deeper in your debt. Goodbye. 22 May, in camp at the bridge over the Argens.

§ Fam.11.20  DCCCLXXIII (Fam. XI, 20) DECIMUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) EPOREDIA, 24 MAV WHAT I don't do for myself my love for you and your kindnesses to me force me to do — to fear. For though I have often heard the story before, and never thought lightly of it, quite recently Segulius Labeo — and it was exactly like him-tells me that he has been in Caesar's company, and that there was a great deal of talk about you. That Caesar himself had no complaint to make against you, except as to an epigram which he said that you uttered: "that the young man must be complimented, honoured, and — got rid of." He said that he did not mean to give them the chance of getting rid of him. I believe for my part that Labeo told him this epigram or made it up himself, and that it was not mentioned first by the young man. As for the veterans, Labeo would have me believe that their language is abominable, that you are in imminent danger from them, and that they are exceedingly indignant at neither Caesar nor myself being among the ten commissioners, and at everything being put in the hands of your party. Having heard these stories, and being already on the march, I did not think that I ought to allow myself to cross the Alps until I knew what was going on with you in Rome. For as to your danger, believe me they hope by swaggering language and threats of danger to make great profit for themselves, when they have cowed you and egged on the young man, and that all that talk about your epigram has one origin-their desire to do as good a stroke of business as possible. Not, however, that I wouldn't have you be cautious and avoid traps: for nothing can be dearer and more precious to me than your life. Take care that you are not forced to be still more afraid by being timid, and that you meet the wishes of the veterans by whatever means that can be done. First, do what they want about the commission of ten. Next, as to rewards, vote, if you think good, that the lands of those veteran soldiers who have served with Antony be transferred to them by both Caesar and myself. As for the coinage, tell them that the senate with deliberation, and after a full investigation of the money, will authoritatively settle that business. For the four legions to whom you in the senate have voted that lands should be given, I see there will be enough land to draw upon from the confiscations of Sulla and the territory of Capua. I think these lands should be given to the legions share and share alike, or by drawing lots. It is no particular wisdom of mine that makes me write this to you, but my love for you and my yearning for peace, which cannot be firmly secured without you. Unless it is absolutely necessary I shall not quit Italy. I am arming and preparing my legions. I hope that I shall have an army that will not be very unfit to grapple with all chances of fortune and all attacks of men. From the army commanded by Pansa, Caesar does not intend to allow a legion to join me. Please answer this letter at once, or if the matter is very confidential, and one which you think I ought to know, send one of your men. 24 May, Eporedia.

§ Fam.11.23  DCCCLXXIV (Fam. XI, 23) DECIMUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) EPOREDIA, 25 MAY: WE are all well here, and I shall do my best to make us better. Lepidus seems to us to be fairly well disposed. Having got rid of every fear, we ought to consult for the interests of the state with freedom. But if everything else went wrong, yet with three such great armies devoted to the service of the Republic in full force, you ought to have the high courage which you have always kept, and can now by the blessing of fortune increase. As to what I told you under my hand in my previous letter — it is all mere talk meant to bluff you. If you once get the bit between your teeth, may I die if all of them put together will be able to stand against you when you start speaking. As I told you in my last letter, I shall remain in Italy till a letter from you reaches me. 25 May, Eporedia.

§ Fam.10.19  DCCCLXXV (Fam. X, 19) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GAUL) ROME (27 MAY) THOUGH I do not look for formal thanks from you, since I know that you are most grateful in fact and from your heart, nevertheless — for I must confess the truth — they were very gratifying to me. For I seem to see, as though it were something actually visible to the eye, that I am beloved by you. You will say, "What did you think before?" Well, I always knew it, but never with greater clearness. Your despatch was wonderfully liked by the senate, both for the facts it contained, which were of the utmost importance and significance, indicating supreme courage and consummate strategy, and also for the impressiveness of its sentiments and language. But, my dear Plancus, push on with all your might and finish the last struggles of the war. In this you will find the greatest popularity and glory. Of course the object of all my desires is the Republic: but, by heaven, I am by this time tired out with my efforts to save it, and am now not more earnest in favour of my country than of your glory. To win that the immortal gods have now given you a unique opportunity, as I hope. Embrace it, I beseech you. For the man who crushes Antony will have brought a most abominable and dangerous war to an end.

§ Fam.10.25  DCCCLXXVI (Fam. X, 25) TO GAIUS FURNIUS (IN GAUL WITH PLANCUS) ROME (26-30 MAY) IF it is of importance to the Republic — as is the general belief — that you should complete the work in the same spirit as you have begun to do it and have actually done it, and that you should take part in the important operations for extinguishing the last sparks of the war, I think you can do nothing better or more laudable or more to your honour: and in my opinion this labour, activity, and patriotic spirit on your part is to be preferred to any hurrying on of the praetorship. For I would not have you ignorant of the amount of reputation which you have gained. Believe me, it is second only to Plancus, and that too on the testimony of Plancus himself, as well as by the report and knowledge of everybody else. Wherefore, if there is still any labour left for you to perform, my opinion is that you should throw yourself into it with energy. What can be more to your honour? And what is to be preferred to honour? But if you think that you have done all you are bound to do for the state, I think you should come with all speed to the comitia, for they are likely to take place early: provided only that this hurry to secure office does not detract in any way from the glory which we have secured. There have been many very illustrious men who, being abroad on the public service, have missed their proper year for canvassing. And this is easier in our case, because this is not the year marked out for you, on the principle that if you had been aedile your year would have been two years later. As it is, you will appear not to omit any of the customary observance, and what is a quasi-statutory period of canvassing. Moreover, I foresee that with Plancus consul (although even without him your path would be clear) your canvass would be after all more brilliant, provided that the campaign on which you are now engaged shall have been brought to the conclusion we desire. On the whole I don't think that there is much need for me to write any more, considering your great prudence and judgment, yet nevertheless I was unwilling that you should be ignorant of my opinion: the upshot of which is that I would rather you should judge of everything by consideration for your true position than from the chance of official promotion, and should look for your reward in a lasting reputation rather than in a rapid attainment of the praetorship. This was the gist of what I said in my house at a conference with my brother Quintus, Caecina, and Calvisius — all men most devoted to you — your freedman Dardanus being also present. My speech seemed to be approved by all of them. But after all you will judge best for yourself.

§ Fam.10.16  DCCCLXXVII (Fam. X, 16) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (AT CULARO) ROME (27 MAY) Never within living memory have I seen anything happen, Plancus, more glorious, more welcome, or more exactly in the nick of time, than your despatch. For it was delivered to Cornutus in a full meeting of the senate just after he had read aloud the cold and shuffling despatch of Lepidus. Immediately after it yours was read and was received with loud cheers. For it was not only most welcome for the actual news it contained and the zeal and good services to the state which it implied, but its language and sentiments were also most impressive. Cries were raised that Cornutus should at once bring forward a motion arising from your despatch. He said that he wished time for consideration. When this had brought down on him a severe remonstrance from the whole senate, five of the tribunes brought forward a motion. Servilius being called upon voted for postponing the business. I then delivered an opinion with which they all agreed to a man. What it was you will learn from the decree itself. As for you, though you are in no want of prudence, or rather have enough and to spare, you ought yet to resolve to refer nothing here, nor in the midst of such sudden and pressing emergencies to think yourself bound to ask advice from the senate. Be your own senate, and follow wherever the interest of the public service shall lead you. Let it be your object that we hear of some brilliant operation by you before we thought that it was going to happen. I pledge my word to you that whatever you achieve the senate will accept as having been done not merely with loyal intention, but also with wisdom.

§ Fam.12.14  DCCCLXXVIII (Fam. XII, 14) P. CORNELIUS LENTULUS SPINTHER TO CICERO (AT ROME) PERGA, 29 MAY: Having been to see our friend Brutus and discovered that he was not coming to Asia for some time, I returned to Asia to finish off the arrears of my business and to transmit the money to Rome as soon as possible. Meanwhile I was informed that Dolabella's fleet was in Lycia, and more than a hundred ships of burden, on board which his army might be embarked; and that Dolabella's plan was that, if he was disappointed of his hopes of getting possession of Syria, he should take ship and make for Italy, and there join the Antonies and the other outlaws. That so alarmed me that, throwing all other business aside, I endeavoured to reach these ships with a fleet of fewer and smaller vessels. And had I not been hindered by the Rhodians, that force would have perhaps been entirely destroyed. After all, it was to a great extent put out of action; for the fleet itself was scattered in all directions by the terror of our approach, the soldiers and officers took flight, the ships of burden, to the last vessel, fell into our hands. At least, I think I have secured — what was causing the greatest alarm — that Dolabella cannot reach Italy, nor make your difficulties greater by reinforcing his allies. How completely the Rhodians thought that it was all over with us and the Republic you will learn from my public despatch. And indeed I have written much more mildly about their delusion than I found it in real fact to be. But do not be surprised at my having mentioned them in my despatch at all, for their infatuation is really surprising. I was not moved by any private wrong received from them at any time; it was their ill-will in a matter involving our lives, their violent adherence to the other side, the persistent disrespect shown by them to all the best loyalists, that were intolerable to me. Yet after all I don't think that they were all bad men: but that same party of them who in old times refused to receive my father in his flight, L. Lentulus, Pompey, and other men of the greatest distinction, these same men, I say, as though by some fatality are now either actual magistrates or have those who are in office in their power. And so they show the same proud obstinacy in their malice. That the evil propensities of these men should sooner or later be checked, and that we should not allow them to increase by impunity, is not only to the advantage of the Republic, but absolutely necessary. I hope you will continue as before to defend my position whenever you get an opportunity, and in the senate and elsewhere give your Support to my reputation. Since Asia has been assigned by decree to the consuls, and they have been allowed until their arrival to commit the administration to the magistrates now in possession, I beg you to ask them to select me before anyone else for this position, and to commit the administration of Asia to me till one or the other of them arrives. For there is no reason for their hurrying hither during their year of office or sending an army. For Dolabella is in Syria, and, as you have foreseen in your prophetic soul and have foretold, Cassius will crush him while they are on their way. For Dolabella has had the gates of Antioch shut in his face and got a good beating in trying to storm it. Not trusting in any other city, he has betaken himself to Laodicea, on the sea-coast of Syria. There I hope he will speedily pay the penalty of his crime: for he has no place of refuge, nor will he much longer be able there to stand out against an army as large as that of Cassius. I even hope that Dolabella has by this time been overpowered and crushed. Wherefore I don't suppose that Pansa and Hirtius will hurry themselves to go to their provinces whilst they are consuls, but will conduct the consulship at Rome. Therefore, if you will ask them to give me the administration of Asia in the meantime, I hope you may be able to get it for me. Besides, Pansa and Hirtius promised me personally, and wrote to me when I was away, and Pansa faithfully promised our friend Verrius that he would see to no successor being appointed for me during their consulship. It is not, upon my honour, from any special desire of a province that I wish my period of office prolonged; for this province has been to me the source of much labour, danger, and loss. And I am very anxious that I may not have undergone all these in vain, nor be forced to leave it before I wind up what, in spite of my diligence, there still remains to be done. For if I had been able to send the whole sum which I have levied, I should have asked to be relieved. As it is, I want to get in and make up what I have advanced to Cassius, what I have lost by the death of Trebonius, or by the cruelty of Dolabella, or the perfidy of those who have not kept their word with me and the Republic. And this cannot be done unless I have time. Pray take care — as is your habit — that I get my wish through you. I think my services to the state have been sufficient to give me a right to expect not only the reward of this province, but as much as Cassius and the two Bruti got, not only because I shared in that glorious deed and the danger of it, but also from the zeal and integrity of my conduct now. For I was the first to defy the laws passed by Antony; I was the first to bring over Dolabella's cavalry to the Republic and hand them on to Cassius; I was the first to hold a levy to protect the common safety against a most criminal Conspiracy. I was the sole cause of Syria and the armies in it being put under the authority of Cassius and the Republic. For unless I had handed to Cassius such a large sum of money and such strong forces, and with such promptitude, he would not have even had the courage to enter Syria, and at this moment no less dangers would have been threatening the Republic from Dolabella than from Antony. And then, too, I did all this though I was a club-fellow and most intimate friend of Dolabella, most closely allied in blood to the Antonies, and, moreover, in possession of a province by their favour; yet, "loving my country more," I was the first to proclaim war against men who were all my friends. Though I am aware that these things have as yet not brought me much profit, nevertheless I do not despair, nor shall I be prevented by fatigue from abiding not merely in my passion for freedom, but also in labour and dangers. Still, after all, if I am encouraged by some just and well-deserved credit through the good offices of the senate and aristocracy, I shall enjoy a greater prestige with others, and be able to be so much the more serviceable to the Republic. I could not see your son when I visited Brutus, because he had already started with the cavalry into winter quarters, but upon my honour I am rejoiced at the reputation he enjoys, both for your sake and his, and especially for mine. For he is like a brother to me, as being your son and worthy of you. Good-bye. 29 May, Perga.

§ Fam.12.15  DCCCLXXIX (Fam. XII, 15) P. LENTULUS, PROQUAESTOR, PROPRAETOR, TO THE CONSULS, PRAETORS, TRIBUNES, SENATE, AND ROMAN PEOPLE PERGA, 29 MAY-2 JUNE: If you and your children are well, I am glad. I am well. Asia having been overrun by the criminal proceedings of Dolabella, I betook myself to the neighbouring province of Macedonia and to those defences of the Republic which the honourable citizen Marcus Brutus had under his command, and urged that the province of Asia and its revenues should be restored to your authority by those who could do so most promptly. This alarmed Dolabella, and therefore, after plundering the province, seizing its revenues, selecting Roman citizens especially to beggar and sell up, he quitted Asia quicker than the protecting force could be brought into it. I therefore did not think it necessary to delay any longer, nor to wait for the garrison, and I conceived that I ought to return at the earliest opportunity to my duty, in order that I might both collect the arrears of revenue and call in the money I had deposited, and ascertain as soon as possible what part of it had been seized, or by whose fault that had occurred, and inform you about the whole affair. Meanwhile on my voyage by the island route into Asia I was met by the information that Dolabella's fleet was in Lycia, and that the Rhodians had a number of vessels fully equipped and ready launched. Accordingly, with the ships which either I had brought with me or the proquaestor Patiscus had secured — a man very closely united to me both by intimate friendship and political sympathies — I diverted my course to Rhodes, trusting in your authority and the decree of the senate, by which you had declared Dolabella a public enemy, and also in the treaty which had been renewed with them in the consulship of M. Marcellus and Servius Sulpicius, in which the Rhodians had sworn to have the same enemies as the senate and Roman people. However, I found myself entirely mistaken. For so far from our strengthening our fleet by any assistance from them, our soldiers were even warned off by the Rhodians from city, harbour, the roadstead outside the city, from purchasing provisions, and finally even from taking in water; while I myself was only just allowed to approach in a single boat. This insult and derogation from the dignity, not only of my official position, but also of the imperial position of the Roman people, I did not resent, because from an intercepted despatch I had learnt that Dolabella, if he had despaired of Syria and Egypt — as was certain to happen-was prepared to embark on board his ships with all his outlaws and all his money and make for Italy; and that for that purpose also some transports, not one of which was less than 2,000 amphorae burden, collected in Lycia were being guarded by his fleet. Dismayed by the alarming nature of this report, fathers of the senate, I preferred to submit to the insult and to try first every means, though involving personal indignities. Therefore, being in accordance with their wishes introduced into the city and senate, I pleaded the cause of the Republic with the greatest earnestness of which I was capable, and stated the whole danger of the situation which threatened us, if that outlaw embarked with all his forces. But I found the Rhodians to be so utterly misguided, that they thought the loyalists were the weakest of all parties: that they were more ready to disbelieve in the existing unanimity and agreement of all orders in the defence of liberty: that they were confident that the tolerance of the senate and the aristocracy was even now what it had been before, and that no one would have the Courage to declare Dolabella a public enemy: in fact that they regarded as true all the figments of the traitors rather than what had really taken place and was being stated by me. It was with these views that even before my arrival, after the atrocious murder of Trebonius and numerous other abominable crimes, two embassies from them had gone to Dolabella, and that too contrary to all precedent, it being against their own laws, and in spite of the prohibition of the then existing magistrates. Though they might easily have applied a remedy for this crisis, they refused to do so. I don't know whether it was, as they give out, from fear for the lands which they possess on the continent, or from the infatuation or tolerance of a few politicians who on previous occasions equally insulted men of the highest rank and now do so to those actually in the chief offices, without precedent and without provocation from us. They refused — I say — in spite of the danger threatening us who were on the spot, and of that which threatened Italy and our city, if that murderer with his crew of outlaws sailed to Italy after being expelled from Asia and Syria. Some of us even suspected the magistrates of having detained us and of having wasted time until Dolabella's fleet was informed of our arrival. And this suspicion was deepened by several things that occurred afterwards, especially by the fact that Dolabella's legates Sextus Marius and Gaius Titius suddenly quitted the fleet on the Lycian coast and fled on board a ship of war, abandoning the transports, in the collection of which they had spent considerable time and labour. Accordingly, when we arrived at Lycia from Rhodes with the ships then in our possession, we took over the transports and sent them back to their owners. Thus we ceased to feel what had been our chief fear — that Dolabella might find means to reach Italy with his outlaws. We pursued his flying fleet as far as Sida, which is the farthest district of my province. There I ascertained that some of Dolabella's ships had scattered and fled, that the rest had made for Syria and Cyprus. These being thus dispersed, as I knew that the very large fleet of the eminent citizen and general Cassius would be ready to meet him in Syria, I returned to my official duties: as I shall do my best, fathers of the senate, to give you and the Republic the full benefit of my zeal and industry; and as to money — I will collect as much as I can and with the greatest possible promptness, and will send it by every means in my power. When I have made a tour of my province and have ascertained who have been faithful to us and to the Republic in safeguarding the money which I deposited with them, and who are guilty of actually handing over public money and by this gift entering into a partnership with Dolabella in his crimes, I will inform you. And if you will pass a severe sentence, should it so please you, upon these men and back me up by the weight of your authority, I shall be able with greater ease both to collect the arrears of revenue and keep that already collected safe. Meantime, in order more thoroughly to protect the revenues and to defend my province from ill-treatment, I have enrolled a guard formed of volunteers and only such as was absolutely necessary. After I had written this despatch, about thirty soldiers, whom Dolabella had enlisted in Asia, escaping from Syria arrived in Pamphylia. They brought word that Dolabella bad arrived at Antioch in Syria: that not being admitted he made several attempts to force an entry, but had always been repulsed with great loss; and accordingly after losing about 600 men, abandoning his sick, he retreated by night from Antioch towards Laodicea: that in that night nearly all his Asiatic soldiers deserted him: that of these about returned to Antioch and surrendered to the officers commanding the city who had been left there by Cassius: that the rest crossed Mount Amanus and descended into Cilicia, to which number they said that they also belonged themselves: finally, that Cassius with his whole force was reported to be four days' march from Laodicea at the time when Dolabella was pressing on to that town. Wherefore I feel sure that a most villainous outlaw will be punished sooner than I thought. 2 June, Perga.

§ Fam.10.20  DCCCLXXX (Fam. X, 20) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (IN GAUL) ROME, 29 MAY: ALL the news from your part of the world is so uncertain that nothing occurs to me to say to you. For at one time reports of Lepidus are satisfactory, at another the reverse. However, of you the report is unvarying — that you can be neither hoodwinked nor beaten. The credit for the latter is to a certain extent fortune's, for the former it wholly belongs to your own good sense. But I have received a letter from your colleague dated the 15th of May, in which he said that you had written to tell him that Antony was not being received by Lepidus. I shall feel more certain of this if you give me the same information in a letter, but perhaps you do not venture to do so owing to the ill-grounded cheerfulness of your former letter. But as it was possible for you, my dear Plancus, to make a mistake — for who escapes doing so?-so no one can fail to see that it was impossible that you should be taken in. Now, however, even the plea of being mistaken has been taken away — "Twice on the same stone," you know, is a fault reproved by a common proverb. But if the truth is as you have written to your colleague, we are freed from all anxiety; yet we shall not be so until you inform us that it is the Case. My opinion indeed, as I have often told you in my letters, is that the man who extinguishes the last embers of this part of the war will be the real victor in the whole war, and I both hope and believe that you will be the man. I am not at all surprised and am deeply gratified that my zeal on your behalf, which certainly Could not have been surpassed, has been as pleasant to your feelings as I thought it would be. You will find it indeed to be greater and more effective still, if things go well with you there. 29 May.

§ Fam.10.35  DCCCLXXXI (Fam. X, 35) M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS TO THE MAGISTRATES AND SENATE PONS ARGENTEUS, 30 MAY M. Lepidus, second time imperator, Pontifex Maximus, greets the praetors, tribunes, the senate, populace, and plebs of Rome. If you and your children are well, I am glad. I and my army are well. I call gods and men to witness, fathers of the senate, what my feelings and sentiments have ever been towards the Republic, and how I have thought nothing of more importance than the common safety and liberty. And this I should shortly have demonstrated to you, had not fortune snatched from me the power of following my own policy. For my whole army broke out into a mutiny, by way of retaining its traditional principle of preserving fellow citizens and the general peace, and — to confess the truth-compelled me to undertake to defend the lives and civil rights of so large a number of Roman citizens. And in regard to this matter, I beg and beseech you, fathers of the senate, to forget private quarrels and to consult for the highest interests of the Republic, and not to regard the compassionate feelings of myself and my army in the light of a crime. But if you take the lives and political position of all into consideration, you will consult better for yourselves and the Republic. 30 May, from Pons Argenteus.

§ Fam.11.14  DCCCLXXXII (Fam. XI, 14) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT EPOREDIA) ROME (MAY, LATE) I am wonderfully pleased, my dear Brutus, that you approve of my policy and sentiments about the decemvirs, and about complimenting the young man. But what does it matter? Believe me — a man not given to brag — I am now, Brutus, quite in the cold shade. For my weapon was the senate: that has now gone to pieces. Your splendid breaking out from Mutina, and the flight of Antony after his army had been cut to pieces, had given us such a bright hope of certain victory, that the spirits of all have begun to flag, and those old fiery contests of mine seem to be, as it were, a mere fighting with shadows. But to return to business. People who know them say that the Martia and the fourth legion cannot by any persuasion whatever be brought over to you. As to the money you want, some means can be taken for that, and shall be taken. About summoning Marcus Brutus and keeping Caesar to protect Italy, I agree with you. But, as you say, you have some detractors. I have no difficulty in rebutting them, yet they do hamper one. We are expecting the legions from Africa. But people are surprised at the war in your parts being renewed. Nothing was ever more unexpected. For when the victory was announced on your birthday, we saw the Republic freed for many generations. These new alarms undo all that has gone before. Now you said in your letter to me of the 15th of May that you had lately heard from Plancus that Antony was not being received by Lepidus. If that is so, everything will be easier. If otherwise, there is a serious business on hand, the result of which I do not dread. It is your part of the play. I cannot do more than I have done. You, however, I desire — as I also hope — to see become the greatest and most illustrious man in the world.

§ Fam.11.16  DCCCLXXXIV (Fam. XI, 16) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT EPOREDIA) ROME (MAY-JUNE) IT is of very great importance at what time you receive this letter-whether when you are suffering any anxiety or when you are free from all distress. Accordingly, I have instructed the bearer to be careful as to the time of its delivery. For just as in personal intercourse those who visit us at an inconvenient time are often troublesome, so do letters cause annoyance if delivered unseasonably. If, however, as I hope, nothing is vexing or hampering you, and if the messenger charged with it selects the time of approaching you with tact and discretion, I feel confident that I shall have no difficulty in obtaining from you what I desire. Lucius Lamia is a candidate for the praetorship. I am particularly intimate with him. There is a friendship of very old standing and very close between us, and what is of the greatest weight of all is that he is supremely delightful in a social point of view. Besides that, I am under great obligations to him for kindness and good offices. For in the Clodian period, being at the head of the equestrian order and fighting with the greatest gallantry in defence of my safety, he was banished from Rome by the consul Gabinius, a thing that had never before that time happened to any Roman citizen at Rome. When the Roman people remembers this, it is most discreditable that I should forget it. Therefore, my dear Brutus, persuade yourself that I am a candidate for the praetorship: for though Lamia is in a brilliant position and extremely popular, and conducted his aedileship with most magnificent liberality, yet I have taken up his cause as if these things were not so. In these circumstances, if you value me as highly as I feel sure you do, since you control certain centuries of the equites, among whom you are all-powerful, send word to our friend Lupus to secure the votes of those centuries for us. Though there is nothing that I do not expect from you, Brutus, yet there is nothing in which you can more oblige me than this.

§ Fam.11.17  DCCCLXXXV (Fam. XI, 17) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT EPOREDIA) ROME (MAY-JUNE) THERE is no one with whom I am more intimate than Lucius Lamia. His — I won't call them attentions, but good services, to me are great, and are most thoroughly well known to the Roman people. After administering the aedileship with most splendid liberality, he is now a candidate for the praetorship, and everybody is aware that he is not deficient either in position or popularity. But there is such an energetic canvass going on that I am thoroughly alarmed about the whole business, and think myself bound to back up Lamia. How much help you can give me in that affair I have no difficulty in seeing, nor indeed have I any doubt of how much you are willing to do for my sake. Pray therefore, my dear Brutus, convince yourself that I can make no request of you with greater earnestness, and that you cannot oblige me more than by assisting Lamia in his canvass with all your influence and all your zeal. I warmly beg you to do so.

§ Fam.10.33  DCCCLXXXVI (Fam. X, 33) C. ASINIUS POLLIO TO CICERO (AT ROME) CORDUBA (MAY-JUNE) IF you are well, I am glad. I am also well. Lepidus caused me to be later than I should have been in receiving intelligence of the battles fought near Mutina, for he detained my letter-carriers for nine days. However, it is almost a thing to be desired, that one should be as late as possible in hearing of such a calamity to the Republic, especially for those who can do no good or offer any cure for it. And oh! that by the same decree by which you summoned Plancus and Lepidus into Italy, you had also ordered me to come! Assuredly the Republic would not have sustained this blow. At which, if certain persons rejoice for the moment, because both officers and veterans of Caesar's party appear to have perished, it is yet inevitable that they will presently have cause to mourn, when they contemplate the havoc of Italy. For the flower and main stock of our soldiers have been destroyed, if at least the news reaching me is in any degree true. Nor do I fail to perceive of how much service to the Republic I was likely to have been, had I come to Lepidus: for I should have dispelled all his hesitation, especially with the aid of Plancus. But it was clearly necessary for me to smooth down a man who writes me the sort of letter which I inclose for your perusal, exactly in the same tone as the harangues which he is said to have delivered at Narbo, if I wished to have any provisions during a march through his province. Besides I was afraid, if the battle took place before I had accomplished my purpose, that my detractors would put an exactly opposite interpretation on my patriotic design on account of my friendship with Antony, which after all was not greater than that with Plancus. Therefore in April having embarked two letter-carriers on two separate ships at Gades, I wrote to you and the consuls and Octavian, requesting to be informed how I could do the best service to the Republic. But, as I calculate the time, the ships started from Gades on the very day on which Pansa fought his battle: for that was the first day since the winter that navigation was possible. And by heaven, being far from any suspicion of the coming civil outbreak, I had put the legions into winter quarters in remote parts of Lusitania. Moreover, both sides were in such a hurry to fight, as though they were afraid of the war being settled without the greatest possible damage to the Republic. However, if such haste was necessary, I perceive that the strategy of Hirtius was in all respects that of a consummate general. At present I have the following news from Lepidus's district of Gaul by letter and messengers: that Pansa's army has been cut to pieces; that Pansa has died of his wounds: that in the same battle the Martian legion was annihilated, and L. Tabatus, Gaius Peducaeus, and Decimus Carfulenus killed: that in the battle fought by Hirtius both the fourth legion and all Antony's alike were cut to pieces, as well as those of Hirtius; that the fourth, indeed, after also capturing Antony's camp were annihilated by the fifth: that there Hirtius also and Pontius Aquila perished: that Octavian also is said to have fallen — for this if true, which God forbid! I am exceedingly grieved: that Antony has abandoned the siege of Mutina with disgrace, but has 5,000 cavalry, three legions fully armed and organized, and one commanded by Publius Bagiennus: that Ventidius also with the seventh, eighth, and ninth legions has effected a junction with him: and that if Antony finds nothing to hope for from Lepidus, he will have recourse to extreme measures, and raise not only the native tribes, but also the slaves: that Parma has been sacked: that L. Antonius has occupied the pass of the Alps. Now if these things are true, not one of us ought to be idle or wait for a decree from the senate. For the situation forces all to aid in quenching such a dreadful conflagration, who wish the Empire, or in fact the very name, of the Roman people, to survive. For I hear that Decimus Brutus has only seventeen cohorts, and two weak legions of recruits, which Antony had enrolled. However, I have no doubt the survivors of Hirtius's army are all flocking to him. For I don't think there is much hope in a levy, especially as, nothing can be more risky than that Antony should have time given him for concentration. The season of the year too gives me more freedom of action, because the corn is by this time in the fields or in the farmhouses. Therefore in my next letter my plans shall be explained: for I do not wish to fail in duty to or to survive the Republic. However, what vexes me most is the length and dangerous nature of the journey to my quarters, the result of which is that no news reaches me till the fortieth day after the event, or even later.

§ Fam.11.26  DCCCLXXXVII (Fam. XI, 26) DECIMUS BRUTUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) IN CAMP (NEAR CULARO), 3 JUNE: IN the midst of excessive sorrow I find consolation in the fact that the world now knows that it was not without cause that I feared what has actually occurred. Let them consider whether to bring the legions from Africa or not, and also from Sardinia; and whether to summon Marcus Brutus or not; and whether to give or decree me pay for my soldiers. I am sending a despatch to the senate. Believe me that unless all these measures are taken as described in my despatch, we shall be in the greatest danger. I beseech you to see to whom to intrust the business of bringing the legions to me. What is necessary is loyalty and speed. 3 June, from camp.

§ Fam.11.21  DCCCLXXXVIII (Fam. XI, 21) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT EPOREDIA) ROME, 4 JUNE: THE gods confound your friend Segulius, the greatest scoundrel that exists, or has existed, or ever will exist! What? Do you mean that he only told you, or that he told Caesar? Why, he never let anyone go, with whom he could get in a word, without telling that same story! Nevertheless, I am as much obliged to you, my dear Brutus, as I ought to be for wishing me to know that piece of folly, whatever it amounted to. For you gave a great proof of your affection thereby. As to what this same Segulius says of you and Caesar not being among the commission of ten, would to heaven I were not either! For what could be a greater bore? However, when I expressed an opinion that a motion should be made about those who were in command of armies, the usual lot in the senate shouted "No !" Accordingly, you were all left out in spite of my vehement opposition. Therefore let us pay no regard to Segulius, who is always on the look-out for revolutionary bonnes fortunes — not that he has devoured his own, for he never had any, but he has made a hearty meal on this last tit-bit. Again, you say that what you would not do for yourself, you do for me — namely, be somewhat alarmed. Best and dearest of men, I free you from all fear for me! For I shall not be caught napping in any affairs that admit of being foreseen. In regard to those which will admit of no precautions I do not much trouble myself. For I should be shameless if I asked more than a human being can have bestowed on him by nature. When you bid me take care lest by a timid line of policy I may be compelled to fear still more, you speak like the wise man and affectionate friend that you are. But pray believe that, as everyone knows you to be eminent in this particular excellence-never, that is, to be frightened, never to lose your head — so I come near this high quality of yours. Wherefore I will fear nothing and be on my guard about everything. But be careful, my dear Brutus, that it is not your fault if I am afraid of anything. For, encouraged by your resources and your consulship, even if we had been timid by nature, we should yet have shaken off all fear, especially as everyone would have been convinced, and I above all, that we were regarded by you with unique affection. I warmly approve of your policy about the four legions, and about the assignation of lands by both of you. Accordingly, when some of my colleagues were nibbling at the land business, I upset the whole affair and caused it to be reserved entirely for your decision. If there is anything to say more than usually secret, and, as you express it, more "confidential," I will send some one by whom the letter may be conveyed with greater fidelity. 4 June.

§ Fam.11.24  DCCCLXXXIX (Fam. XI, 24) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT EPOREDIA) ROME, 6 JUNE: I tell you what: I used to be somewhat irritated at the brevity of your letters. Now I think myself over-talkative. I will therefore imitate you. What a volume in a few words — that you are quite well and will take measures to be daily better; that Lepidus is well-disposed, and that we ought to have confidence in their armies! If I had been nervous, that letter would still have wiped away all fear from my heart. But, as you advise, I have taken the bit between my teeth: for when I rested every hope on you, in spite of your being closely invested, what do you think that I do now? I desire now, Brutus, to make over to you my sleepless watchfulness, though without diminishing my own firm policy. You say that, if the enemy permits it, you will stay in Italy till you get a letter from me. You are not wrong: for much happens at Rome: but if the war can be finished by your arrival on the scene, let that be your first care. The money that was most readily available has been decreed to you. You have a very warm friend in Servius: I never fail to support you. 6 June.

§ Fam.10.23  DCCCXC (Fam. X, 23) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) CULARO, 6 JUNE NEVER by heaven! my dear Cicero, shall I repent of encountering the greatest dangers for my country, provided that, if anything happen to me, I escape the reproach of rashness. I confess that I should have made a slip from imprudence, if I had ever believed at the bottom of my heart in Lepidus. For credulity is an error rather than a crime, and indeed the honester the man the more easily does it find its way into his mind. But it was not by this defect that I was all but taken in: for I knew Lepidus thoroughly. What was it, then? It was over-scrupulousness — the most dangerous thing in war — that compelled me to incur this risk. For, if I had stopped there, I was afraid of being thought by some of my detractors both to have been too obstinate in my quarrel with Lentulus, and to be actually fostering the war by my waiting policy. Accordingly, I brought up my forces almost to within sight of Lepidus and Antony, and leaving a space between us of forty miles I took up a position with the design of being able either to approach them with speed or to retire in safety. In selecting my ground I secured two advantages, a river in my front, which would delay an enemy in crossing it, and the Vocontii close at hand, through whose territory my road would be kept open without fear of treachery. Lepidus, having given up hope of my arrival, which he was very anxious to secure, effected a junction with Antony on the 29th of May, and on the same day they advanced against me. When they were twenty miles off I got news of this. By the blessing of heaven I managed to retire with speed without this movement having any appearance of a flight: without a single soldier or horseman or particle of baggage being lost or being intercepted by those hot-headed outlaws. Accordingly, on the 4th of June I got my whole force across the Isara and broke the bridge which I had constructed, that my men might have time to pull themselves together, and that I might meanwhile effect a junction with my colleague, whom I am expecting in three days from the date of this letter. I will always acknowledge the fidelity and eminent loyalty to the Republic of my friend Laterensis. But certainly his excessive consideration for Lepidus made him somewhat less acute in his view of these dangers. It is true that when he saw that he had been duped, he tried to lay the hands upon himself which he would have done better to have armed against Lepidus. In this attempt, however, he was interrupted, and is still alive, and is said to be likely to live: but of this after all I have no certain information. It was a great chagrin to those parricides that I escaped from their clutches: for they were coming inspired by the same madness against me as against their country. Their temper also had been embittered by recent events-because I had not ceased lashing Lepidus, urging him to put an end to the war; because I rejected the idea of conferences; because I had forbidden legates sent to me under the guarantee of Lepidus to come into my presence; because I had captured Gaius Catius Vestinus, a military tribune, sent by Antony to him with, a despatch, and had treated him as an enemy. And in all this I have at least this satisfaction, that at any rate the more eager they were to get me the more annoyance has their failure caused them. It is your part, my dear Cicero, to, continue as before using all your vigilance and energy in reinforcing us who are at the actual seat of war. Let Caesar come with the best troops he has, or, if any circumstance prevents him from coming himself, let his army be sent. For it is a question of considerable peril for himself. All the ruffian element that was at any time likely to join the camp against their country has now combined. In defence, then, of the city's bare existence, why should we not employ all the resources at our disposal? But if you at Rome don't fail me, certainly, as far as I am concerned, I shall in all respects do my whole duty and something more to the Republic. For you, my dear Cicero, I love you more every day of my life, and every day your services sharpen my anxiety not to forfeit any of your affection or good opinion. I pray that I may be permitted by a personal display of my devotion and duty to make your kindnesses a subject of greater gratification to yourself. 6 June, Cularo, in the country of the Allobroges.

§ Fam.10.32  DCCCXCI (Fam. X, 32) C. ASINIUS POLLIO TO CICERO (AT ROME) CORDUBA, 8 JUNE: MY quaestor Balbus having amassed from the public taxes a large sum of ready money, a great amount of bullion, and a still greater amount of silver, has withdrawn from Gades without even paying the soldiers, and after being detained three days off Calpe by bad weather, on the 1st of June crossed into the kingdom of Bogudes, with a very pretty bit of money in his pocket. With the rumours now going about I don't yet know whether he intends to return to Gades or to go to Rome — for at every fresh piece of news he changes his plans in the most contemptible manner. But besides his peculations and violent robberies and flogging of allies, he has done the following — as he is himself accustomed to boast — in imitation of Caesar. At the games which he gave at Gades, on the last day of the show, he presented the actor Herennius Gallus with a gold ring and formally conducted him to a seat in the fourteen rows — for he had arranged that number of rows for men of equestrian rank. He also caused his office as one of the quattuorviri to be continued beyond the year: he held elections for two years in two following days, that is, he declared whom he chose elected: he recalled exiles, not those of recent times, but of that period in which the senate was massacred or expelled by rebels in the proconsulship of Sextus Varus. The next thing, at any rate, is not covered by a precedent of Caesar's: he put on the stage a "Roman drama" representing his own expedition to solicit the proconsul Lucius Lentulus, and, what is more, whilst it was being acted he burst into tears, affected by the memory of his own adventures. At the gladiatorial Contests, moreover, there was the case of the old Pompeian soldier named Fadius. Because this man, having been pressed into the gladiatorial school, and having fought twice without pay, refused to bind himself as a professional gladiator, and threw himself on the protection of the people, he first of all sent a squadron of Gallic horse to charge the people — for stones were thrown at him as Fadius was being dragged off — and then, having seized him, he half buried him in the school and burnt him alive. While this was being done he walked about after dinner without his boots, with tunic ungirdled, and his hands behind his back, and in answer to the unhappy man crying out "I am a born Roman citizen," he replied: "Off with you then, and appeal to the people." He also exposed Roman citizens to the beasts, among them a certain travelling pedlar — a very well-known character at Hispalis from his misshapen body. This is the kind of monster with whom I have had to deal. But more about him when we meet. For the present the important thing is to make up your minds what you want me to do. I have three strong legions, one of which — the twenty-eighth-Antonius tried to get to join him by promising that on the day it arrived in camp he would give each soldier denarii, and the same bounty in case of victory as to his own legions. And of such bounties who thinks that there will be any limit or end?-Nevertheless I have managed to retain it though in a most restless state: nor should I have retained it, if I had kept it united and stationary, for certain cohorts have actually mutinied. My other legions also he has not ceased to solicit by letters and unlimited promises. Nor, indeed, has Lepidus been less urgent with me — in letters of his own and from Antony — to send them the thirtieth legion. So the army which I have refused to part with at any price, or to weaken from fear of the dangers portended in case they were victorious, you ought to consider to have been retained and preserved for the Republic, and to believe that I was prepared to obey any future commands of yours, since I have obeyed those which you have given. For I have kept my province in peace and my army under my own control: I have not quitted the borders of my province in any direction: I have not despatched a single soldier anywhere-not only of the legions, but even of the auxiliaries; and such of the cavalry as I have detected in trying to get out of the country I have punished. For these acts I shall think myself sufficiently rewarded if the Republic is safe. But if the Republic and the majority of the senate had known me as well as they ought, they would have got greater advantages out of me. A despatch which I have addressed to Balbus, since he is at this moment in the province, I am sending for your perusal. Also if you will care to read a "Roman drama," ask my friend Cornelius Gallus for it. Corduba, 8 June.

§ Fam.12.8  DCCCXCIII (Fam. XII, 8) TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS (IN SYRIA) ROME (JUNE) THE crime of your relative Lepidus and the extreme fickleness and levity of his conduct I think that you will have learnt from the gazette of the senate, which I am assured is sent to you. Accordingly, after once finishing the war we have a renewed war upon our hands, and our whole hope is in Decimus Brutus and Plancus. If you would have the real truth, it is in you and our friend M. Brutus, not only for immediate safety, if, what I trust may not be the case, any reverse occurs, but also for securing a permanent liberty. We at Rome have gratifying intelligence about Dolabella, but it does not rest on good authority. Let me assure you that you are the hero of the hour, both from present impressions and future expectations. With this knowledge before your eyes, be sure that you aim at the highest achievement. There is nothing which the Roman people does not think can be accomplished and sustained by you.

§ Fam.12.30  DCCCXCIV (Fam. XII, 30) TO Q. CORNIFICIUS (IN AFRICA) ROME (JUNE) Is it really so? Does no one bring a letter from me to you except suitors? There are a good many of that sort certainly: for you have created the impression that no one is effectively recommended to you without a letter from me. But who among all your friends ever told me of anyone to whom I could intrust a letter without my doing so? Or what greater pleasure have I than writing to you or reading a letter from you, since I am debarred from talking to you? What troubles me more than anything is that I am so overwhelmed with business as not to have the power of writing to you whenever I choose. For I should have bombarded you, not with mere letters, but with whole volumes, with which, however, I ought to have been first challenged by you to respond. For though you are busy, yet you have more leisure than I have, or, if you haven't any leisure either, don't cast modesty to the winds and vex me by demanding more frequent letters, when you only write to me yourself at long intervals. For though I was before this distracted with the most constant engagements, arising from the fact that I consider the safety of the state to require my every thought and care, yet at this present moment I am much more distracted than ever. For as an illness is more serious when after imagining themselves cured invalids suffer a relapse, so is our distress more acute when, after fighting a successful battle and almost putting an end to the contest, we are struggling with a recrudescence of the same war. But enough of this. Assure yourself, my dear Cornificius, that I am not so feeble-minded, not to say unfeeling, as to be Capable of being surpassed by you in good offices or affection. I never doubted it indeed, but Chaerippus has all the same made your affection to me much more evident. What an excellent fellow! He always suited my taste, but now I find him quite delightful. It was not merely your sentiments and words that he conveyed to me: he brought vividly before me your every look. So don't be afraid of my having been annoyed with you for treating me as you do the rest of the world. I have indeed desired a letter from you addressed exclusively to myself, but it was never unreasonably, and always in an affectionate spirit. As to the money which you say you are spending and have spent on your army, I can do absolutely nothing to aid you, because the senate is made helpless by the loss of both consuls, and the treasury is in incredible straits for money, which is being called in on every side to satisfy the promises made to the soldiers who have done such excellent public service. Even this I think cannot be done without a property tax. That business of Attius Dionysius I think amounts to nothing, for Tratorius said nothing to me about it. As to Publius Lucceius I don't in any way yield to you in zealous interest: for he is a close friend of mine. But when I asked the liquidators for a postponement, they satisfied me that they were prevented from granting it both by the agreement that had been come to and by their oath. Wherefore in my opinion Lucceius must appear. However, if he has obeyed the letter I wrote to him, he ought to be at Rome by the time you read this. As to the other matters you mention, and especially as to money, you wrote in ignorance of Pansa's death about certain grants which you thought that you might get from him through me. In which you would not have been disappointed had he been alive, for he was attached to you. But after his death I fail to see what can be done. As to Venuleius, Latinus, and Horatius, I much commend you. The next thing you say, however, I don't approve — that in order to soften the matter for them you have deprived your legates also of their lictors: for in outward marks of honour they ought not to be put on a level with men who deserve to be disgraced; and I think that those three men ought in virtue of the senate's decree, if they do not quit the province, to be compelled to do so. This is what I had to say in answer to the letter which I received in duplicate. For the rest, be assured that my own political position is not dearer to me than yours.

§ Fam.11.13  DCCCXCV (Fam. XI, 13) [DECIMUS BRUTUS AND L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO THE SENATE AND MAGISTRATES] (CULARO, ABOUT 9 JUNE) ...they had hoped, because they neither thought that the four legions of Plancus were a match for their forces, nor believed that an army could be brought across the Alps from Italy with such speed. Yet the Allobroges themselves with the whole body of cavalry — sent forward by us with that express purpose — have been able to hold them in check up to now in a confident manner enough: and when we arrive we feel sure that they will be still more easily held up. Nevertheless, if they have by any chance crossed the Isara, we shall take the greatest care to prevent loss to the public service. We would have you be of high courage and entertain the best hopes of the public safety, since you see our armies united in complete sympathy and prepared for any and every service on your behalf. Nevertheless you must not relax in your earnest attention, and you must do your best to enable us in defence of your safety to confront, in the highest state of preparation both as to men and other necessaries, the utterly abominable combination of our enemies, who have in fact suddenly converted the forces, which they had long been collecting under pretence of serving the state, to the purpose of endangering their country.

§ Fam.12.13  DCCCXCVI (Fam. XII, 13) CASSIUS PARMENSIS TO CICERO (AT ROME) CROMMYUACRIS IN CYPRUS, 13 JUNE: If you are well, I am glad. I am well. I rejoice not only at the safety and victory of the Republic, but also at the revival of your glorious reputation. That as the noblest of consulars you have surpassed yourself as the noblest of consuls I am at once delighted and unable to wonder sufficiently. A certain special favour of destiny has been shown to your virtue — of which we have often had practical proofs. For your toga has been more fortunate than everyone else's arms; and has now once more rescued the Republic, when all but conquered, from the hands of its enemies, and restored it to us. So now we shall live free men: now we shall have you — greatest of all citizens and most beloved by me, as you discovered in the darkest hour of the public fortunes — now, I say, we shall have you as a witness to our love both to you and to the Republic, which is so closely bound up with you. And that which you often promised that you would suppress while we were slaves, and would say of me when likely to be to my service, now, I shall not so much desire to be said as to be felt by you. For I would not wish to be commended by you to the good opinion of others more than to have been commended to your own in a manner worthy of my deserts, that you may judge these recent acts of mine to have been no mere hasty impulses or departures from principle, but in harmony with those lines of thought of which you are a witness; and may think that I deserve to be brought forward prominently by yourself, as giving promise of doing excellent service to my country. You, Marcus Tullius, have children and relatives worthy of you and deservedly most beloved by you. Next to them those also ought to be dear to you in public life who emulate your special branch of learning, of whom I wish you a goodly store: yet after all I don't regard myself as excluded, however great the crowd. You will always have room to receive me, and to employ me in everything you wish and approve. Of the goodness of my disposition perhaps you have already been convinced: my ability, certainly, such as it is, our prolonged servitude has allowed to appear less than after all it really is. From the sea-coast of the province of Asia and from the islands we have launched all the ships we could; we have levied rowers, with great Opposition on the part of the cities, yet with fair rapidity; and we have pursued Dolabella's fleet, which is commanded by Lucius Figulus. This officer, by frequently holding out hopes of deserting to us, and yet keeping continually edging away, has by his most recent move got to Corycus, and having closed the harbour, is beginning to offer resistance. Abandoning that fleet, because we thought it better to make our way to the camp, and because there was another fleet coming, which Tillius Cimber had collected in the previous year, and the quaestor Turullius was commanding, we made for Cyprus. The information I got there I am anxious to tell you as quickly as possible. It is this: Dolabella has been actually invited not only by the people of Tarsus, the worst of allies, but also by the Laodiceans, who are still more disaffected. By the number of Greek soldiers which he has got from both these states, he has secured what looks like an army. He has a camp pitched outside the town of Laodicea, and has pulled down a part of the wall and united his camp with the town. Our friend Cassius with ten legions and twenty auxiliary cohorts, and cavalry 4,000 strong, has a camp pitched twenty miles away at Paltus, and thinks that he can win without a battle: for in Dolabella's quarters corn is already twelve drachmae the medimnus. Unless he manages to get some brought in by the ships of Laodicea, he must soon perish of hunger. That he should not be able to get any in we can easily secure between us — that is, Cassius's fleet, which is a fairly large one under the command of Sextilius Rufus, and the three which I, Turullius, and Patiscus have brought up. I would have you be hopeful, and feel sure that, as you at Rome have relieved the Republic from its difficulties, so on our part it can be quickly relieved by us. Good-bye. 13 June, Cyprus, off Crommyuacris.

§ Fam.11.25  DCCCXCVIII (Fam. XI, 25) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT CULARO?) ROME, 10 JUNE: As I was waiting day after day for a letter from you, our friend Lupus suddenly gave me notice to write to you if I wanted to say anything. But I, though I had nothing to say — for I knew the gazette was being sent to you, and I was also told that the chatter of a letter with nothing in it was disagreeable to you — have aimed at brevity, following your teaching. Be it known to you then that our every hope rests on you and your colleague. As to M. Brutus we have as yet nothing certain: but I never stop calling on him in my confidential correspondence to come and take his share in the war in which we are all engaged. Would to heaven he were already here! We should have less reason to fear the danger within the city, which is really serious. But what am I doing? I am not imitating your laconic style; I am already beginning a second page of paper. Victory and health to you! 18 June.

§ Fam.12.9  DCCCXCIX (Fam. XII, 9) TO C. CASSIUS LONGINUS (IN SYRIA) ROME (JUNE) THE brevity of your letter makes me the briefer in mine, and, to speak the honest truth, I can think of nothing to say. For what is going on with us I know for certain is conveyed to you in the gazette, what is going on with you we don't know. For just as though Asia were under blockade, nothing reaches us except rumours of Dolabella being crushed. These rumours are persistent enough, but they as yet lack confirmation. As for us, when we thought the war finished, we have suddenly been brought into the most extreme anxiety by your relative Lepidus. Therefore convince yourself that the chief hope of the Republic rests on you and your forces. We have, it is true, trustworthy armies: but nevertheless, though everything should go well, as I hope it will, it is of great importance that you should come. For the hope of the Republic is small — I shrink from saying "none" — but whatever it is, it is plighted to the year of your consulship.

§ Fam.11.15  CM (Fam. XI, 15) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT CULARO?) ROME (JUNE) THOUGH your letter was most gratifying to me, yet it was still more gratifying that in the midst of your great stress of business you commissioned your colleague Plancus to write and make your excuses to me; which he did with due care. But to me nothing can be more touching than your politeness and Careful attention. Your junction with your Colleague and your harmonious relations announced in your joint despatch were gladly welcomed by the senate and Roman people. For the rest, go on, my dear Brutus, and henceforth vie, not with others, but with yourself. I need write no more, especially to you, whose teaching I follow in being brief. I anxiously await a letter from you, and above all such a one as I hope and pray for.

§ Fam.10.22  CMI (Fam. X, 22) TO L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS (AT CULARO) ROME (END OF JUNE) In you and your colleague is our every hope, with the blessing of heaven. With the cordial union existing between you, which was manifested in your joint despatch, both the senate and the whole body of citizens were delighted. You mention in your letter to me the subject of the land commission. If the senate had been consulted on the matter I should have supported whoever made the proposal most complimentary to you — and that person would have certainly been myself. But when, owing to the slowness with which opinions were expressed, and the delay thus caused to business, the motions brought before the senate did not reach a settlement, it seemed best to myself and your brother Plancus to avail ourselves of the senatorial decree, as to which you will have learnt from your brother's letter who it was that prevented its being drawn up exactly in accordance with our wishes. But if you find anything wanting in that decree or in other things, still assure yourself that the affection for you among all loyalists is so great, that no kind of position can be imagined, however splendid, which is not at your disposal. I am exceedingly anxious to hear from you, and to hear such news as I most desire.

§ Fam.10.26  CMII (Fam. X, 26) TO GAIUS FURNIUS (IN THE CAMP OF PLANCUS) ROME (END OF JUNE) After reading your letter in which you state that Narbonensis must be abandoned or a dangerous battle fought, the former course seemed to me the more formidable, which I am glad to hear has been avoided. You mention the Cordial union of Plancus and Decimus Brutus: in that I place my strongest hope of victory. As to the loyalty of the Gauls, we shall some day learn, as you say, by whose exertions that has been roused. But, believe me, we already know it. Therefore, most delightful as your letter was, I felt a little vexed at the end of it. For you say that if the elections are fixed for August you will hurry home: if they are already over you will come still sooner, "that you may not any longer play the fool and risk your life as well." Oh, my dear Furnius, how completely you fail to grasp your position, though so readily understanding other people's! Do you really suppose that you are now a candidate, or do you Contemplate hurrying home to the elections; or, if they are over, to live at your own house that — as you say — "you may not be the biggest fool alive and in danger as well "? I don't think these are your real sentiments; for I know your keenness for glory. But if you do really think as you write, I don't blame you more than I do my own opinion of you. Can it be that an untimely haste for an office of the most trivial and commonplace kind — if you get it in the same way as most people do — will withdraw you from the pursuit of such glorious deeds, for which all the world is rightly and sincerely praising you to the skies? The question, good heavens! is whether you become praetor at this election or the next, not whether you are to serve the Republic so as to be thought worthy above all men of every kind of honour! Is it that you are ignorant of the height to which you have climbed, or that you think it worthless? If you are ignorant, I forgive you: the fault is ours. But if you are not, is any praetorship more attractive in your eyes than duty for which few, or than glory for which all, strive? On this point I and Calvisius — a man of very sound judgment and most devoted to you — daily find fault with you. As to the comitia — as you are depending on them — we are doing our best, thinking it for many reasons to be for the benefit of the Republic, to put them off till January. So then victory and health to you!

§ Fam.12.10  CMV (Fam. XII, 10) TO GAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS (IN SYRIA) ROME (BEGINNING OF JULY) LEPIDUS, your marriage relation, and my friend, was on the 30th of June declared a public enemy by a unanimous vote of the senate, as well as all who with him deserted the Republic. To them, however, a chance of returning to their right minds was given up to the 1st of September. The senate was very resolute, but chiefly in reliance on your aid There is, in fact, a very grave war in progress at the moment of my writing this, owing to the crime and instability of Lepidus. We daily hear satisfactory intelligence about Dolabella, but as yet by mere rumour-without definite source or confirmation. But though that is the case, still the letter which I have received from you dated from camp on the 7th of May has persuaded the whole city to believe that he has already been crushed, and that you are on your way to Italy with an army, so that, if affairs in these parts are settled as we wish, we may rely on your counsel and influence; and if there is any mishap — as will occur in war — we may rely on your army. This army, indeed, I will compliment by all the means in my power. The time for that will be when it has begun to be known what amount of aid it is likely to give to the Republic, or what amount it has already given. For at present we are only told of attempts — excellent indeed and most glorious — but we wait to hear of some decisive action: which for my own part I feel sure has taken place or is near doing so. Nothing can be more glorious than your valour and high spirit. Therefore we long to see you as soon as possible in Italy. We shall think that we have the Republic, if we have you. We had gained a splendid victory, had not Lepidus received Antony when he was without provisions or arms and in flight. Therefore Antony was never such an object of dislike to the state as Lepidus is now. For the former stirred up war when the Republic was in a revolutionary state, the latter when victory had been crowned by peace. Opposed to this war we have the consuls-designate. In them we have indeed high hopes, but owing to the uncertainty of the results of battles, we are in all the anxiety of suspense. Assure yourself; therefore, that everything depends on you and Marcus Brutus, and that you are both anxiously expected, Brutus indeed now momentarily. And if; as I hope, your arrival finds our enemies conquered, yet your authority will enable the Republic to raise its head and once more to stand on some tolerable foundation. For there will be many things demanding reform, even if the Republic shall seem fairly well released from the criminal attempts of its enemies.

§ Fam.10.29  CMVI (Fam. X, 29) TO APPIUS CLAUDIUS (IN EXILE) ROME, 6 JULY: OF my zeal for you and your restoration I think you have learnt from the letters of your friends, whom I know for certain that I have satisfied in the most complete manner possible; nor do I yield to them — eminently devoted as they are to you — in my wishes for your safety. They are obliged to yield to me the credit of having at this particular time greater power than they of furthering your recall And this I have never ceased and never will cease to do. I have already to a very great degree succeeded, and have laid the foundations of your restoration. Be sure to keep a good heart and high courage, and trust me not to fail you in anything. July 6.

§ Fam.11.22  CMVII (Fam. XI, 22) TO DECIMUS BRUTUS (AT CULARO?) ROME, 6 JULY: I have a friendship with Appius Claudius, son of Gaius, founded on many good services on his part and corresponding ones on mine. I ask you with more than usual earnestness, for the sake either of your own kindness or for mine, that you determine that his safety shall be secured by your influence. I wish you, as you are known to be the most gallant of men, to be considered also the most merciful. It will be a great feather in your cap that a young man of the highest rank has been restored by your favour. His claim ought to be all the stronger from the fact that it was from filial feeling that he joined Antony in gratitude for his father's restitution. wherefore, though you will have an excuse to plead that is not entirely sound, yet you will be able to bring one forward that at least is plausible. Your nod can retain in the full rights of citizenship a man of the highest birth, of the greatest ability, and one besides who is full of kindness and gratitude. I ask you to do this with a heartfelt earnest-ness beyond which I cannot go in making any request.

§ Fam.10.24  CMXI (Fam. X, 24) L. MUNATIUS PLANCUS TO CICERO (AT ROME) CAMP NEAR CULARO, 28 JULY: I cannot refrain from thanking you in view of the course of events and of your services. But, by heaven! I blush to do it. For an intimacy as close as that which you have wished me to have with you seems not to require any formal thanks, nor do I willingly pay the poor recompense of words in return for your supreme kindness, and I would rather, when we meet, prove my gratitude by my respect, my obedience to your wishes, and my constant attentions. But if to live on is my fate, in this same respect, obedience to your wishes, and constant attentions, I will surpass all your beloved friends and even your devoted relatives. For whether your affection for me and your opinion of me are likely to bring me greater reputation in perpetuity or greater daily pleasure, I should find it hard to decide. You have concerned yourself as to the bounties to the soldiers; whom I wished to be rewarded by the senate, not to enhance my own power — for I am conscious of entertaining no thoughts except for the common benefit — but first of all, because in my opinion they deserved it; next, because I wished them to be still more closely attached to the Republic in view of all eventualities; and lastly, in order that I might guarantee their continuing as completely proof against all attempts to tamper with their loyalty, as they have been up to this time. As yet we have kept everything here in statu quo. And this policy of ours, though I know how eager men are and with reason for a decisive victory, is yet, I hope, approved of by you. For if any disaster happens to these armies, the Republic has no great forces in reserve to resist any sudden attack or raid of the parricides. The amount of our forces I presume is known to you. In my camp there are three legions of veterans, one of recruits perhaps the finest of all: in the camp of Decimus Brutus there is one veteran legion, a second of two-years'-service men, eight of recruits. Therefore the whole force taken together is very strong in numbers, in stamina inferior. For how much it is safe to trust to raw levies in the field we have had too frequent experience. To the strength of these armies of ours, if there was added either the African army which consists of veterans, or that of Caesar, we should hazard the safety of the Republic on a battle without any uneasiness. Now, as to Caesar, we see that he is considerably the nearer of the two. I have therefore never ceased importuning him by letter, and he has uniformly replied that he is coming without delay: while all the time I perceive that he has given up that idea and has taken up some other scheme. Nevertheless, I have sent our friend Furnius to him with a message and a letter, in case he may be able to do some good. You know, my dear Cicero, that in regard to love for Caesar you and I are partners, either because, being one of Iulius Caesar's intimates, I was obliged — while he was alive — to look after the boy and show him affection; or because he was himself, as far as I could make out, of a very orderly and kindly disposition; or because, after such a remarkable friendship as existed between me and Iulius Caesar, it seems discreditable that I should not regard as a son one who was adopted into that position by his decision and by that of your house alike. Yet after all — and whatever I write to you I write rather in sorrow than in anger — the fact that Antony is alive today, that Lepidus is with him, that they have far from contemptible armies, that they are hopeful and bold — for all these they may thank Caesar. I will not go back to old matters, but from the moment that he gave out that he was coming to me, if he had chosen to come, the war would at once have either been put an end to, or, to their very great loss, have been thrust back into Spain, which is most hostile in sentiment to them. What idea or whose advice has withdrawn him from such great glory, which was at the same time required by his interests and needful for his safety, and has turned his attention to the thought of a two-months' consulship, entailing a great and general panic, and demanded in a peremptory and offensive manner — I cannot conjecture. It seems to me that in this matter his relations could exercise considerable influence both for his sake and for that of the Republic: most of all, as I think, could you also do so, since he is more obliged to you than anyone else is except myself — for I shall never forget that the obligations I owe you are exceedingly great and numerous. I commissioned Furnius to urge these considerations upon him. But if I prove to have as great an influence with him as I ought to have, I shall have done him a great service himself. Meanwhile we are maintaining the war at a disadvantage, because we do not think an engagement the safest Solution of the difficulty, and yet will not allow the Republic to suffer greater loss by our retirement. But if either Caesar has bethought himself; or the African legions have come promptly, we will relieve you of anxiety on this side. I beg you to continue to honour me with your regard, and to believe that I am peculiarly at your service. 28 July, in camp.

§ Fam.10.24  APPENDIX CICERO TO OCTAVIAN IF your legions, which are most bitterly hostile to my name and to that of the Roman people, had left it possible for me to come into the senate and hold debate in the presence of the Republic, I would have done so, and not so much with pleasure as from necessity. For no remedies applied to wounds are so painful as those that are healing. But since, being hemmed round with armed cohorts, the senate cannot decree anything expressing its real sentiments except that it is in terror, since in the Capitol there are military standards, since in the city soldiers roam at will, since in the Campus Martius a camp is pitched, since the whole of Italy is distracted by legions enrolled to secure our freedom, but brought here to enslave us, and by the cavalry of foreign tribes — I will for the present yield you possession of the forum, the senate-house, and the most sacred temples of the immortal gods, in which, as liberty first revives and then is trampled out, the senate is consulted about nothing, has countless fears, and only passes decrees to flatter. Presently, when the state of things seems to demand it, I shall quit the city, which, once preserved as it was by me that it might be free, I shall never endure to see enslaved. I shall quit a life which, although filled with anxiety, yet, if destined to profit the Republic, consoles me with a good hope of future fame. If that hope is taken from me, I shall fall without a moment's hesitation, and shall depart, though taking care to make it clear that in my judgment fortune and not courage has deserted me. But there is one thing I will not omit as a proof of my recent wrong, as a record of past outrage, and a declaration of the feeling of those that are away: since I am prevented from remonstrating with you face to face, I will do so in your absence in the defence of the Republic and in my own. And I say "in my own defence," since my safety is either useful to the Republic or at least closely bound up with the public safety. For in the name of the immortal gods — unless by chance it is vain for me to appeal to those, whose ears and hearts are turned from us — and in the name of the fortune of the Roman people, which though hostile to us was once propitious, and, as I hope, will be so again — who is there so lost to all feelings of manhood, who is there so bitterly hostile to the name and dwelling-places of this city, as to be able to ignore what is happening, or not to grieve at it, or, if he can by no means remedy the public disasters, not to avoid his own danger by death? For, to begin at the beginning and to trace events to the end, and to compare the last with the first, what morrow has dawned on the Roman people that was not more disastrous than the day before, and what hour that was not more calamitous than that which it succeeded? Marcus Antonius, a man of great courage — I only wish he had been wiser! — when Gaius Caesar had by an act of the greatest resolution, though with no happy results, been removed from his despotic rule over the Republic, had conceived the ambition for a more regal primacy than a free state could tolerate. He was throwing away the public money, exhausting the treasury, reducing the revenues, presenting cities and whole tribes with immunity in virtue of Caesar's memoranda. He was playing the part of dictator, imposing his laws upon us: and while forbidding a dictator to be named, he himself assumed the authority of a king while he was still consul, and had set his heart on controlling all the provinces by himself. What had we to expect or look for from a man who thought the province of Macedonia, which Caesar when victorious had taken as his own, as too mean for him? You stood forward then as the champion of our liberty, the best that was possible at the time — and oh! that neither our opinion of you nor your own good faith had been forfeited! — and having hired veterans to form a body of soldiers, and having induced two legions to abandon the destruction of their country for its preservation, when the Republic was now in all but a desperate and utterly prostrate position, you suddenly raised it by your own resources What honours, before you demanded them, on a greater scale than you desired, more numerous than you hoped, did not the senate bestow upon you? It gave you the fasces that it might have a defender with full authority, not that he might by this imperium take arms against itself. It gave you the title of imperator, when the army of the enemy had been repulsed, by way of paying you a compliment, not that that fugitive army, shattered by the slaughter which it had itself incurred, might hail you imperator. It decreed you a statue in the forum, a 'place in the senate, the highest office before the legal age. If there is anything else that can be given, it will add it. What is there greater than this that you desire to take? But if on the other hand you have had every kind of honour bestowed on you before the legal age, beyond the ordinary usage, beyond even the reach of human nature, why do you curtail the authority of the senate as though it were ungrateful, or forgetful of your good services? Is it wanton cruelty or deliberate crime on your part? Whither have we sent you? From whom are you returning? Against whom have we armed you? On whom arc you meditating war? From whom are you withdrawing an army? Against whom are you drawing out your line of battle? Why is the public enemy left untouched, and the citizen attacked as an enemy? Why in the very midst of your march is your camp pushed farther from the adversary and nearer the city? Their hope is perforce our terror. Oh, how unwise I have always been, and what an ill-grounded reputation has mine turned out to be! How greatly, oh people of Rome, have you been deceived in me! What an old age of disaster and ruin! Oh, what a disgrace to my grey hairs, when life is all but gone and dotage has set in! I — I have led the senate to its bloody doom! I have deceived the Republic! I have forced the senate to lay violent hands upon itself, when I said that Iuno smiled on your birth, and that your mother had brought forth a golden age! In reality the fates were foretelling you to be the Paris of your country, destined to devastate the city with fire, Italy with war; to pitch your camp in the temples of the immortal gods; and to hold the senate in a camp. What a miserable upsetting of the constitution — how sudden and rapid and complicated! Who is likely to arise with a genius capable of narrating these events so as to make them seem fact and not fiction? Who will there ever be of such quick intelligence as not to think that events which have been recorded with the most absolute truthfulness only resemble the incidents of a drama? For think of Antony declared a public enemy; of a consul-designate, and he too a father of the state, besieged by him; of you setting out to relieve the consul and crush the enemy; of the enemy being put to flight by you and the consul released from the siege; and then shortly afterwards of this same routed enemy invited back as your coheir to receive, after the death of the Republic, the property of the Roman people; and of the consul-designate again surrounded where he had no walls to defend himself, but only streams and mountains. Who will attempt to give a picture of these events? Who will be bold enough to believe them? Let me be once pardoned for having made a mistake; let confession atone for an error. For I will speak frankly. Would to heaven, Antony, we had not driven you away as our despot, rather than have received this one! Not that any servitude is a thing to be wished, but because the condition of a slave is rendered less degrading by the rank of his master; while of two evils the greater is to be shunned, the less is to be chosen. He after all used to ask for what he desired to carry oft; you wrench it from our hands. He sought to obtain a province when he was consul, you set your heart on one when a private Citizen. He established courts and carried laws to protect the bad, you to destroy the best. He protected the Capitol from bloodshed and the incendiary fire of slaves, you wish to wipe out everything in blood and flame. If the man who granted provinces to Cassius and the Bruti, and those other guardians of the Roman name, acted as despot, what will he do who deprives them of life? If the man who ejected them from the City was a tyrant, what are we to call the man, who does not leave them even a place of exile? Therefore, if the buried ashes of our ancestors have any Consciousness, if all sensation is not destroyed along with the body in one and the same fire, what will one of our people say who has most recently departed to that eternal home, when questioned as to the present fortunes of the Roman people? What kind of news will the famous men of old — the Africani, the Maximi, the Paulli, and the Scipiones — receive about their posterity? What will they hear about their country, which they adorned with spoils and triumphs? Will it be that there was a youth eighteen years old, whose grandfather was a money-changer, his father a touting witness, both in truth making a precarious livelihood, but one of them up to old age so that he could not deny it, the other from boyhood so that he could not but confess it: and that this youth was plundering the Republic? And that, too, though he had no provinces subdued and added to the empire, and no ancestral position to give him a claim to that overweening power? Though his good looks had gained him money by his shame and a noble name stained by unchastity? Though he had forced old gladiators of Iulius, reduced by wounds and age — the starveling remainders of Caesar's training school — to accept the wand of dismissal, surrounded by whom he wrought general havoc, spared no one, lived for his own enjoyment, and held the Republic as his private possession, as though in marriage with a rich wife he had received it as a legacy? The two Decii will hear that those citizens are slaves, to secure whose supremacy over their enemies they devoted themselves for victory. Gaius Marius, who refused to have even a common soldier who was unchaste, will hear that we are the slaves of an immoral despot. Brutus will hear that the people, whom he first and afterwards his descendants liberated from tyrants, has been consigned to slavery as the price of shame. These reports, if by no one else, will be quickly carried down to them by myself. For as I shall be unable to escape your tyrannies while living, I have determined to fly from life and from them at the same time.

§ APP.01  APPENDIX A [The following letters of recommendation cannot be dated, and are put here as almost completing that class of letter, and as being no doubt earlier at least than B.C. 44, or at any rate than the March of that year. The first has been attributed by some to B.C. 63. If that is so, it is the only letter of the year of the consulship: but there is really no means of thus dating it, or indeed of dating it at all.]

§ Fam.13.76  I (Fam. XIII, 76) TO THE QUATTUORVIRI AND DECURIONES OF [?FABRATERIA] ROME: I have so many reasons for being intimate with Quintus Hippius, that nothing can be more closely united than we are with each other. If that were not so, I should have maintained my usual resolution of not being troublesome to you in any matter. For in fact you are my best witnesses that, though I was convinced that there was nothing I might not obtain at your hands, I have never wished to be burdensome to you. I therefore beg you again and again with warmth that you would for my sake treat Gaius Valgius Hippianus as liberally as possible, and come to such a settlement, that he may be able to hold without obligation or charge the estate in the territory of Fregellae which he purchased from you. If I obtain that favour from you I shall consider that I have received a very signal kindness at your hands.

§ Fam.13.43  II (Fam. XIII, 43) TO QUINTUS GALLUS (?IN ASIA) ROME: THOUGH I hope that I shall have many occasions for observing, what after all I have long ago observed, that I am beloved by you, yet you have now before you a case in which you have a ready means of showing your goodwill towards me. Lucius Oppius, son of Marcus Philomelius, is a banker, and my intimate friend. I commend him to you in a special manner, and all the more so, that while I like the man himself, he is also manager of the business of L. Egnatius Rufus, my most intimate friend among the Roman knights, and one most closely united to me both by daily association and by very numerous and very important services. I therefore beg you to show affection for Oppius who is with you, and protect the interests of Egnatius who is not, as earnestly as if it were my own business. In order to aid your memory I should like you to give him some sort of writing to be returned to you in the province. Write it in such a way that whenever you read it you may easily recall the earnestness of this recommendation of mine. I beg you warmly and repeatedly to do this.

§ Fam.13.44  III (Fam. XIII, 44) TO Q. GALLUS (IN ASIA?) ROME: Although from your letter and from that of my very intimate friend L. Oppius I am assured that you are mindful of my recommendation, and though, in view of your very great kindness to me and our intimacy I am not at all surprised at that, nevertheless I reiterate my recommendation of L. Oppius, who is with you, and of the' business affairs of my most intimate friend, L. Egnatius, who is not. He is so closely allied and so intimate with me, that I could not be more anxious if it were my own affair. Therefore you will very greatly oblige me if you take care that he understands that I am as much beloved by you as I think I am myself. You cannot possibly oblige me more, and I beg you warmly to do so.

§ Fam.13.45  IV (Fam. XIII, 45) TO APPULEIUS (PROQUAESTOR IN ASIA) ROME: Lucius Egnatius is my most intimate friend among the Roman knights. I commend to you his slave Anchialus and his banking business in Asia as earnestly as if I were commending my own business. For I would have you believe that there is not only a close daily intercourse between us, but also important mutual services. Wherefore I reiterate my request that you will see that he understands that I have written to you with sufficient earnestness: for as to your goodwill towards me he had no doubt. I beg you again and again to do so. Good-bye.

§ Fam.13.46  V (Fam. XIII, 46) TO APPULEIUS (IN ASIA) ROME: Lucius Nostius Zoilus is a co-heir with me, and besides that the heir of his patron. I state these two facts both to show you that I have reason to be his friend, and to convince you that he must be an honest man to have received such a compliment from his patron. I therefore recommend him to you as though he were a member of my house-hold. I shall be very grateful if you will take pains to make him understand that my recommendation has been of great service to him with you.

§ Fam.13.51  VI (Fam. XIII, 51) TO P. CAESIUS ROME: I commend P. Messienus to you, a Roman knight, a man adorned by every kind of accomplishment, and very intimate with me. This recommendation is meant to be of the most earnest kind possible; and in the name of our own friendship and that of our fathers, I beg you to receive him into your confidence and to protect his property and reputation. You will have secured a good man and one worthy of your friendship, and you will have greatly obliged me.

§ Fam.13.47  VII (Fam. XIII, 47) TO P. SILIUS NERVA (IN BITHYNIA) ROME: Why should I recommend one whom you already like? But in spite of that I write this to you that you may thereby be assured that I not only like, but really love him. Of all your services, which are many and great, the most acceptable to me will be your treating Egnatius in such a way as to make him feel that he is loved by me, and I by you. I reiterate this request with warmth. Our plans have no doubt fallen through. Let us console ourselves therefore with the hackneyed reflexion, "perhaps it is all for the best." But of this when we meet. Go on as you have begun-loving me and feeling certain that I love you.

§ Fam.13.48  VIII (Fam. XIII, 48) TO SEXTILIUS RUFUS (QUAESTOR IN CILICIA) ROME: I commend all the Cyprians to you, but more especially the Paphians. Anything you can do to oblige the latter will be regarded with great gratitude by me. I have the more pleasure in commending them to you because I think it will conduce to your reputation (of which I am ever a supporter), as you are the first to enter the island as a quaestor, if you establish precedents for others to follow. You will, I hope, secure this with greater ease if you decide to follow the law of your connexion Publius Lentulus, and the regulations made by myself. This course I feel sure will redound to your honour.

§ Fam.12.20  IX (Fam. XII, 20) TO QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS (IN CAMPANIA) ROME: Your letter gave me great pleasure, except for the contempt it expressed for my little lodge at Sinuessa. This insult my bijou villa will much resent unless you make full and complete amends at Cumae and Pompeii. Pray do so, and go on loving me and bombarding me with letters of some sort. For I am better at reply than at challenging. But if you continue idle about it, as you are at present, I shall have at you; and your want of spirit shall not produce inactivity in me. More when I have leisure: I scribble these lines while in the senate.

§ Fam.13.52  X (Fam. XIII, 52) TO Q. MARCIUS REX (IN SICILY?) ROME (AFTER B.C. 47) Aulus Licinius Aristoteles of Melita has been my guest-friend for many years past, and is besides united to me by a very frequent and friendly intercourse. This being the case I feel sure that he is sufficiently recommended to you, For many people have told me that my recommendation has great weight with you. I secured this man's liberation from Caesar. For he had been constantly with us, and stuck even longer to that side than I did myself. This I think will make you think all the better of him. See therefore, my dear Rex, that he understands my letter to have been of very great service to him.